


DIARY OF A MADWOMAN

by vanhunks



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-10
Updated: 2016-09-14
Packaged: 2018-08-14 07:03:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8002864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanhunks/pseuds/vanhunks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In this story, a “what if” scenario on the episode “Night” Janeway remains in the void and sends Voyager, led by Commander Chakotay, through the spatial vortex. Traveling alone in the void for two years becomes a journey which tests her endurance and d.<br/>First posted; August 1999</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Paramount owns Voyager, the shuttle Sacajawea, Janeway and Chakotay. I created the sentient character Wotan, Janeway’s computer; also introducing Kru’dan and Roya, two inhabitants of the void.
> 
> Thanks to Monique Cline for the betareading.

* * *

**AN INTRODUCTION**

Please read this introduction to “Diary of a Madwoman.”  I will place various WARNINGS along the way. If you’ve passed the last WARNING, then you are ready to proceed with the reading of this tale.

NOTE: This story is a “what if” story based on the episode “NIGHT”. In this “what if” scenario, I posed the question: “What if Kathryn Janeway got her way and remained in the void, like she suggested to Chakotay? Kathryn Janeway gets her way. The plan Chakotay and the senior crew came up with, I changed liberally.  The options they discussed would leave only one answer: someone would have to be on the inside to destroy the vortex. Kathryn destroys the spatial vortex after Voyager has gone through. **She will remain in the void.**

 

The ordinary things we don’t think of. Paris asks: “how will you survive in the void?”

 

For this story I have revived the shuttle Sacajawea. The STE lists the shuttle as having crashed only (in Coda), and not destroyed.

The shuttle Sacajawea is fitted out to ensure survival. The aft section contains, amongst others, a bed, a mirror, ablution alcove, replicator. Weird, do you think? As Janeway said to Harry once: “Weird is part of the job.”

 

WARNING: Kathryn Janeway will travel alone in the Sacajawea for a while. For company, she has programmed the shuttle’s computer to become “sentient”, to have a personality. We know that Kathryn, as a brilliant scientist, has the ability to effect such a procedure. This computer will talk to her, have conversations with her.

 

WARNING: Believe it or not, there is an NC-17 section in this story.

 

WARNING: Kathryn has named her computer for a god in Norse mythology. There will therefore be references throughout the story to certain mythological symbols and characters. At the end of this introduction there is a “What the reader should know about the references to mythology and some other things.” You may not like mythology.

WARNING: The title gives you an indication of the protagonist’s state of mind. Given Kathryn Janeway’s disposition in “Night”, her depression, feelings of guilt, etc., I have sort of built on this. If after two months in the void ABOARD Voyager, with her crew there, she hides in her cabin and stays in darkness, well then...

 

Continue if all of the above warnings have intrigued you.

**What the reader should know:**

 

  1. Kathryn has named her computer WOTAN.



 

In Norse mythology Wotan ( Odin in Norse, Wotan in German and Woden in Anglo-Saxon) is the god of the gods. He is generally referred to as the All-Father. (In Greek and Roman mythology the equivalent of Zeus and Jupiter).

I have used the reference of Wotan (war-tuhn ) as a main character in two of RICHARD WAGNER’S Operas. These operas form part of Wagner’s famous NIBELUNGEN RING, a cycle of four operas starting with:

_Das Rheingold (The Rhinegold)_

_Die Walküre   (The Valkyrie)_

_Siegfried._

_Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the gods)_

 In the two operas Wotan’s character appears with an eye-patch. He is god of the gods, who represents the inner consciousness, the father-figure, the leader. Brünnhilde (Brynhilde) is a warrior who heads the Valkyries; she is also Wotan’s favoured “daughter”.

It is this character, Wotan, who will be Kathryn’s companion in the story.

 

  1. What is the Nibelungen? And the Ring?



 In Norse mythology the Nibelungen was a place of darkness, mists and obscurity. The creatures (dwarfs) who dwelled in this “underworld” were the Nibelungs, led by Alberich. The nature of this place will lead Kathryn to refer to the void and its inhabitants as Nibelungen.

Although the inhabitants were never named in the episode, I have given their race a name.

  1. The Ring.



It was the ring fashioned from gold stolen by Alberich from the Rhine-maidens, then stolen from him by Wotan. In the operas the Ring represents greed, evil, power, and unity, a symbol that will be featured in the story.

  1. Wotan (the computer) is a character. See in the story how this character interacts with Janeway. He will refer to her by many names. Bear with me.
  2. All sources used will be indicated at the end of the story.
  3. The title: The title was borrowed, great courtesy from the play “Diary of a Madman” by Russian author, Nikolai Gogol. There is further no resemblance to the contents of that play. It bears no relation at all to the 1963 film, “Diary of a Madman” which was again based on a novel, “The Horla”  by French author Guy Du Maupassant.



 

Any more information will create foreshadowing. Therefore, dear reader, I thank you for your patience in reading the introduction.

* * *

CHAPTER 1

 

The void - deep and dark...eerie in its very obscurity. An expanse of ceaseless black through which a ship moved, yet never felt movement. There was nothing that could give the weary traveler even the faintest hint that he was somewhere, that there was at least a point of destination, heralded perhaps by a shining star, or a nebula, or a cosmic horizon. There was no sun that rose and set to determine for the traveler or the inhabitant of the void the birth of a new day; or a full moon that would reach its fullness again a cycle later, that could give the pilgrim a sense of time. No clouds, no seasons, no horizons...

It was night, eternal.

The darkness enveloped the ship, and like the sun on a balmy day, it was bathed, though in a cloak of sinister proportions. The night clung to its crew and evoked even in the hardiest and most courageous person a sense of being trapped, like an animal. A claustrophobic feeling when it seemed to the traveler that black walls were closing in... Rather than fill him with fear or some macabre apprehension of pending dangers, it instilled in the traveler a great hopelessness; a despairing feeling that he would traverse this infinite expanse, this place of moonless murkiness forever in his desperate quest to reach his home. The inhabitants of this dark place did not experience these feelings; they were accustomed to the gloom.

It was a place of great silences for how, the crew of the ship thought, could there be sound when there was nothing? This void was an emptiness that seeped into their bones so that they themselves appeared to merge with their surroundings. It was possible that a crewmember, pausing to take a deep breath, could hear indeed a sound - the beat of his heart or the throbbing of his pulse. It was possible that a noise made by one, like dropping a spoon on the floor of the ship’s mess hall, could magnify in the stillness and sound like the crack of lightning. It was possible that in the stillness of the night, a person’s breathing, a soft footfall on the carpeted corridors of the ship could register as mere...echoes of the void.

Such was the fate of the Federation Starship USS Voyager as it continued on its lonely quest for home. Like a ghostly apparition, the ship sailed silently in the deathly stillness of perpetual darkness. It made no sound as it moved in its quest to reach the end of the void, an arduous trek of two long years. Its lights dimmed, Voyager moved forward cutting the darkness - a dart speeding, yet appearing not to speed. For its occupants - the crew of this valiant and intrepid ship - the ship became a claustrophobic prison which caused some to experience panic attacks, “fear of nothingness”; others felt the oppressive gloom too much, their nerves fraying badly at the edges. Lovers quarreled over every slight infraction, some of the crew became morose, and others played plaintive, mournful tunes on their clarinets. And, although there were those who tried their best to keep the morale of the crew raised, it was the ship’s captain whose disposition during the first two months of their journey in the void begged the most discussion.

Voyager’s crew thought that Kathryn Janeway was seriously depressed. They knew she kept to her quarters exclusively, and that her quarters (according to their first officer and relayed via the ship’s effective grapevine) was shrouded, as it were, in complete darkness. Like the ship moving through the void enshrouded in gloom, her darkened quarters became a metaphor, they said, for the captain’s state of mind. The gloom suited her present mood, some crew thought, but whether the void caused the Captain’s mood or it merely exacerbated an existing one, everyone agreed that this state of affairs could not continue.

Of the senior officers, Commander Chakotay was the most concerned.  He continually tried to encourage the captain to join him in a  holodeck game to “get her mind off things”, and keep her from dwelling too much on what both he and Tuvok thought were “unnecessary corrosive emotions such as guilt and remorse.”  Naturally, the Captain told her First Officer in the nicest way possible where to get off, if not in the void. She was bent on wallowing in her guilt. When Chakotay expressed his concern to Tuvok about the Captain’s reclusive behaviour, the Security Chief told him that the Captain experienced guilt which “has been her constant companion.”

In typical Vulcan fashion, Tuvok, in response to Chakotay’s surprised, “She **told** you?” replied: “I have studied her behaviour these last four years.”

*****

Kathryn Janeway, having learned that Emck, the Malon, was responsible for dumping radioactive waste - the Malon having adopted  a mentality of “it is the perfect site for dumping, there’s no one here”  -  resolved to help the Susurra. Tuvok and Chakotay tried their best to dissuade the Captain from adopting a method that they felt, was foolhardy.

They proved no match for the Captain’s implacability as she swept their opposition aside with ice-cold, ruthless tenacity. Their concerns were voiced at a time when they learned that the existence, culture and livelihood of the inhabitants of the dark were threatened by an alien race called the Malon. To be more specific, when Voyager happened upon one representative of that race whose activities threatened the Susurran’s - for that was what the void’s inhabitants were called - continued survival. For a very long time the Malon used Susurran space to dump radio-active waste there on the assumption that no one lived there. The void _was_ inhabited, and the Susurra were slowly dying of radio-active poisoning as a result of the thoughtless actions of the Malon.

These ancient dwellers, the Susurra, having lived in the void for millions of years, had evolved to survive there. They were a race that possessed some form of transporter technology, and the ability to cloak their ships. Or, it could just have been that they merged so completely with their surroundings that their sudden appearance could give the impression of having been cloaked. That was why at first, Voyager’s crew was unaware that the void was inhabited, and were extremely surprised when some Susurra found their way aboard Voyager. These inhabitants perceived Voyager as a threat and shut down the ship’s energy sources. It made Janeway sit up for once when the ship was suddenly thrown in total darkness.

Once again the dilemma Kathryn Janeway faced when she destroyed the array to save the Ocampa, presented itself in another, not altogether dissimilar form. The need to be of help to the inhabitants of the void became her one magnificent obsession, an opportunity to, in some way, make amends for what she perceived as a selfish act: stranding her crew in the Delta Quadrant.

It must be said here that Kathryn Janeway spent the two months they had traveled in the void, brooding over the decision she made to destroy the Caretaker’s array, an act that stranded Voyager in the Delta Quadrant. She was, as Tuvok stated, guilt-ridden, a feeling that increased as each day passed in the void, each day the same, each hour the same. It was a brooding she could not shake off. She refused to leave her quarters, leaving the running of the ship to Chakotay, always on the understanding though, that Kathryn was really still making all the decisions. So, with this contradiction, Kathryn Janeway shrouded herself in darkness, allowing her guilt and her remorse to flourish in her darkened heart. She blamed herself and could not forgive herself. She did not believe that she could be redeemed for these actions, and where before she could draw on her own inner strength and beliefs, the darkness around her proved too much. And always, unspoken, the need to forgive herself, to find absolution; something which would instill in her a deep sense of peace.

The Malon freighter entered the void through a spatial vortex, and to prevent Emck from using the void as a dumping ground and continue killing the Susurra, Voyager had to neutralise him, or, if necessary, kill him. They could do this by closing the vortex situated inside the void. The spatial vortex also had one major advantage to the Voyager crew: once they proceeded through, it would save them from the hellish two years they would have to spend traveling the entire distance through the void before they could see a cloud once again.

For the Susurra, this ghost ship called Voyager became first a threat, then a curiosity, then a saviour. Naturally, the rescuer in Janeway kicked in. She wanted to help the aliens, but it meant Voyager would be stranded in the void for two years were they to close the vortex at its weakest end.

She did not take long to agonise over this decision, though. In fact, her mind had been made up. She would help the Susurra and Voyager by destroying the Malon freighter, letting Voyager go through the vortex, and then close the vortex. This meant that Captain Janeway would remain in the void for at least the amount of time it would have taken Voyager to reach the end of it. In this way she could atone for her heinous deed of making a selfish decision for the crew - as their Captain.

Kathryn insisted that her solution was the only possible way of saving their new friends, getting the crew home, and gaining a measure of expiation. She did not want to be responsible for making a decision that would strand them all again. She had maintained incessantly that it was “*I* who made the decision for all of **you** ”, that it was “*I* who decided to destroy the array”, and therefore “*I* must take the responsibility alone for my actions”. Such was her pain, her dilemma, her guilt, her remorse; so much so that her decision to remain behind in the void and destroy the Malon freighter and close the spatial vortex forever, had been seen by many as a noble sacrifice to her magnificent obsession to find absolution. Captain Janeway’s decision was made and her crew had to abide by it. Voyager would go through the vortex and sail on home, finding any means possible to do so in the quickest way. That was the solemn promise Kathryn Janeway made and the silent vow they made to honour that promise.

Voyager’s First Officer didn’t want to accept this decision by the Captain and made a last desperate attempt to get Kathryn Janeway to change her mind. Their last conversation would remain with both Captain Kathryn Janeway and Commander Chakotay for a very long time.

******* 

“Kathryn, you don’t have to do this. We’re all in this together,” Chakotay’s voice rang out in the darkness of her cabin.

She had still been standing in silhouette, but now she moved towards him, and in the faint light where he was standing he could see the firm set of her jaw, the resolve. When she spoke, it was through clenched teeth, the words and sounds expressed as though she never opened her mouth.

“Through whose fault, Chakotay?” she asked with a dangerous edge to her voice. “Whose fault indeed?”

“No one’s, Kathryn. We accepted your leadership and you have made this ship a home for us - “

“It didn’t have to be!” she stated heatedly, her cheeks suddenly flaming as she advanced on him, about to poke him in the chest. Then she backed away suddenly, not wanting any physical contact with him.

Chakotay reached for her, but his hand slumped again when he saw her withdrawal.

“An entire race needed us, Kathryn. We saw their need and wanted to - no, had to - help. That is _us_ , Captain. That is who we are.  That is who _you_ are!” he countered with great feeling.

Chakotay felt how he was losing ground in this argument, but he feared she was about to make a sacrifice borne out of her perceived guilt. A sacrifice that was unnecessary, he thought.

“I stranded all of us in this quadrant, for the rest of our lives.  It didn’t have to be, Commander. It didn’t have to be! I will not let it happen again,” she said heatedly. “I will not let it happen again,” she repeated with feeling.

He could see how impassioned she was, yet at the same time he had this feeling that Kathryn Janeway had made up her mind long before he came to consult with her. And, as usual, all she needed from him was confirmation of her decision. As usual, all he ever offered was some damned token resistance, he thought with self-disgust. A useless first officer, that’s what he was. <Useless! Useless!>, he thought as he imagined he saw the wheels turning inside Kathryn Janeway’s head.

“You are an able leader, Commander. Able to captain this ship and take the crew home,” she said finally. He noticed how she said _the crew_ and not _my crew_. Already she was distancing herself from her crew, her home, her family. In her mind, she had already bid them farewell. His heart bled. But, he tried again:

“What about _us_ , Kathryn?”  His voice was soft now, with an entreating sound to it. He wanted her to remember everything they meant to each other, everything that was still there between them.

“Us, Chakotay?”

“Yes, Kathryn. _Us **.**_ As in everything you mean to me and everything I mean to you - “

“There is no _us_ , Chakotay. Not now. Not now that this task awaits us. Don’t you understand? It transcends mere common things such as thinking about _us_. I will not let it come before my goal, Commander. And yours, ultimately. Get Voyager home. I’ll destroy the Malon freighter and close the spatial vortex from this end.”

“No! No, you can’t!” he pleaded, taking her by the shoulders, but she broke free violently, her eyes burning into him. “Do you realise what this could mean, Kathryn?” he asked desperately, a sob escaping from him.

“I have already prepared a type two shuttle with three photon torpedoes. In thirty minutes I will board the shuttle and leave Voyager - “

“You can’t be serious, Kathryn. There has to be a few more options we haven’t considered,” he said with some exasperation, throwing his hands up. He tried again to stall her, but she continued. Her hands were on her hips in a familiar gesture, as if she were on the bridge barking out orders.

“There is no better option than the present one, Chakotay. No better one. I have stranded you in this godforsaken quadrant, and now the opportunity is there for you to get out of this void - “

“No, Kathryn. The opportunity is there for us - all of us to get out of this void - “

“And leave the Susurra at the mercy of the Malon? Leave them to die, one by one, until they are all gone?” She sounded outraged.

“You will be here longer than two years, Kathryn. That shuttle - “

“I am aware of the shuttle’s warp capabilities, Commander,” she stated firmly. “Inform the crew of my decision,” she added. Her words brooked no argument.

That was when, as he looked with some desperation for an opening, a solution, Chakotay noticed the bareness of Kathryn Janeway’s quarters. Most of the personal items she had collected on their journey were missing. He knew without asking her that her belongings were already on the shuttle. Everything he knew she would need to survive here in the void was already prepared. Yet he moved in her quarters, opening drawers only to find them empty - clothes, her books, everything gone. It was a distraught Chakotay who turned on Kathryn Janeway, grabbed her by her shoulders and hauled her into his arms. His great anger was tinged at the same time with fear, and passion. Everything he felt in those moments, every waking moment’s emotion, like the deep rumbling of the ocean’s undercurrents, burst forth and sprayed over them as his mouth bore down on hers. He ground his lips into hers, plunged his tongue into her mouth so deep that the desire welled in both of them, heating them up. His need was raw as he bit and kissed and nipped and tasted. Wave upon wave of ecstasy burned through them as they were catapulted into a strange maelstrom of passion.

The kiss ended eventually, with Kathryn Janeway gasping as she was pushed away from him.

“I - I can’t leave you here, Kathryn. Don’t do this. Don’t do this to us,” he pleaded.

“Chakotay,” she said softly, “this is no time for debate. I’ll be leaving soon. You know what your task is -“

“Dammit, Kathryn!”  Even as he uttered this invective, he realised it was over. He felt the ridiculous sting of tears, felt the same great depth of loss he felt when she had nearly died and he screamed her name to the heavens that she must breathe. His lips trembled, and he felt his hands shaking.

Her stance, her very demeanour, the set of her shoulders, the resolve in her eyes, bespoke a cool and rational decision made.  As convinced as he was the she was making a calamitous decision, so was Kathryn convinced that her plan of action was the only plan, the only solution. He wanted to think she was hysterical, or incoherent. But Kathryn Janeway stood before him, and she was anything but irrational. Her decision was one rooted in the firm belief that her plan would work. That impression, that unspoken statement of fact registered upon his distraught mind.  

Kathryn Janeway looked at Chakotay and her decision to remain in the void became to him an accusation - a pointing of the finger at him. He saw the look in her eyes and knew that she was completely, utterly calm; that he could no longer try to penetrate the resolve in her eyes, her heart, her mind. He knew it was impossible to offer any more objections. Other than Voyager and her crew staying in the void, all the possible options he had discussed with the senior crew resulted every time, in one solution: one would stay behind. And, in the end, he admitted at last with a sigh of capitulation: she **was** the Captain.

Chakotay was unable to conceal his distress and heartache as he realised that he could no more convince his captain to change her mind from such foolhardiness than he could stop the passage of time. Kathryn was cool, calm and utterly clear thinking. Chakotay thought how history had proved that the most insane persons in the universe could present themselves to the world around them as upstanding citizens. No, he admitted, Kathryn was rational.

“Inform the crew,” she instructed him. He stood there, wavering.  She could see he was trying to control his fury, for that was what she knew he felt; it was in the way his jaw clenched, the way his dimples disappeared, in the way his tattoo seemed to glower - it really looked more pronounced.

They faced off like that for several long moments. Then Chakotay looked around him, trying in those dying moments to find some tack, something with which he could fight back. He shook his head in disbelief, in agony, in grief... Then he straightened up, and it seemed as if he clicked his heels. His pitch black eyes glowered.  She reflected absently that she could trace every line and curve of his tattoo.

“This is not the end, Kathryn Janeway,” he promised. “I swear, by God! I swear I will see you again. I will not rest Kathryn Janeway.  I will not rest.”  Chakotay paused to draw breath, then added with passionate entreaty in his voice: “Because you, Kathryn Janeway, have robbed me of my rest.”

“Commander.”

“Captain.”

He paused only momentarily, but it was enough for Kathryn Janeway to see him clench and unclench his fists. Then, he turned on his heels and was gone before Kathryn Janeway could react to his impassioned tirade.

She looked at the door for so long that she had to shake her head to remind herself of the mammoth task that lay ahead of her. That was when she noticed something lying on the floor. She bent down to pick up the shiny object. It was a ring she held in her hand, a gold band that had been simply wrought. She twisted it between her fingers in some deeply thoughtful manner and the words of some months ago came swirling back into her memory:

_“You are my perfect mate, Kathryn. We make a good team. Perhaps one day...”_

She had wanted Chakotay to continue, but then they were alerted to some ship’s emergency. He had taken her one more time in his arms and kissed her. When he let her go, he said:

“We’ll talk again, my sweet Kathryn...”

She remembered that look in his eyes that bespoke a beautiful promise. Then they hit the void. And Kathryn began the descent into hell.

***********

As Kathryn Janeway looked, for one last time, at what had been her home for four years, she gave a deep sigh, slid the ring on her finger and hurriedly left her quarters. She greeted those crewmembers she met in the corridors on her way to the shuttle bays.

What they could see in her bearing was their Captain going to her doom to save the dwellers of the dark, and to save the crew and Voyager the two years they would have stayed in the void. They saluted her as she passed them, knowing that they might never see her again. No one spoke.

As she moved past them, they nodded, then went about preparing to help her defend the vortex and save the world. She would indeed be redeemed.

********** 

**Acting Captain's log: Stardate 52506.1**

_We have made it safely through the spatial vortex and cut the journey through the void by two years._ _In order to ensure that the existence and culture of the Susurra not be destroyed by the Malon,_

_Captain Janeway and the crew felt it was necessary to destroy the vortex. In a bold move, Captain_ _Kathryn Janeway decided to stay behind and destroy the vortex at it weakest end to ensure that no_

_Malon enter the void in order to dump the radioactive waste which has proven deadly to the Susurra._ _We are continuing our journey home without Captain Janeway. We will honour her solemn promise_

_to get home, to find any means of cutting our journey short. The officers and crew of this vessel have_ _all joined in a pledge to return and bring Captain Kathryn Janeway home._

**end log.**

************ 

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

 

**Day 90**

The shuttle Sacajawea ploughed the darkness: a small bug in an infinite expanse of black. Its lights were dimmed, and with its colours of Federation standard white with red bars, the Susurra watched with interest as the shuttle plodded its way through their space. The Susurra who had evolved here and adapted to the darkness, could see every movement of the tiny vessel, could see every line and word of the Federation insignia. Whenever its sole occupant moved in the small confines of her craft, they could see her through the viewports on it port and starboard sides.

She did not know that the Susurra kept a watchful eye on her. They knew of the magnificent sacrifice she had made to help them. She had let her crew sail home and elected to stay behind. It was Kru’dan, who had been on the vessel called Voyager, who told them of the courage of this human female. Kru’dan told them of the immense power of this human woman who looked very small compared to her fellow crewmembers, but who had great strength and courage.  Kru’dan’s life was saved by this Captain Janeway, and he had been deeply affected by the crew of the vessel Voyager. They were not the enemies his people feared. The crew of Voyager had shown them only friendship and had willingly offered to assist them in the fight against the Malon. Therefore, without her knowing it, Kathryn Janeway became someone the Susurrans protected, and from time to time, they communicated with her to enquire about things she might need. They had a well developed communications network, letting others of their race, who lived in more distant sectors of the void, know about the approach of a lonely shuttlecraft with its single and equally lonely occupant.

They began to notice things though...

“Kru’dan,” his friend asked, as they followed the Sacajawea from a distance, “do you think it is normal for humans to converse with themselves?”

“You are speaking of the Captain of a magnificent starship, Roya,” Kru’dan retorted. “If she talks to herself, surely she is entitled to do so? Who knows, it is perhaps her way of coping with her isolation, the way they do things when they travel alone...”

“I do not think so. I do not think it is normal.”

“We are not human, Roya. These visitors from a faraway place...”

“The Alpha Quadrant, Kru’dan?”

Kru’dan looked at Roya in mild exasperation. His younger companion was constantly trying to show his prowess to his superior

“Yes,” he said and nodded at the same time. His eyes were bulgy and, like all the Susurra, he appeared to lisp, “...these visitors, we have seen, are eccentric. They do things we are not familiar with.”

“Like talking to yourself?” Roya dared ask. Kru’dan was his superior and he had to respect his superior’s decisions, but .... He tried again. "Did you know, Kru’dan, that Captain Janeway calls us the " 

“Nibelungen?”

Kru’dan sighed. He gave Roya a longsuffering stare, but could not decide whether the younger man was baiting him deliberately, or whether it was just Roya’s phenomenal ability to appear engagingly stupid. “Yes...although I am not aware of the significance of the name...” He turned his attention to the consoles in front of him. Then he looked up and stared at Captain Janeway’s shuttle.

They could see through the shuttle’s viewports how Kathryn Janeway moved about with nervous energy, gesticulating frantically at times, then becoming thoughtful. They saw her standing with one hand on her hip, and the other against her chin, exactly as though she were thinking or planning what to say or do next.

Because her shuttle’s lights were dimmed, Kru’dan’s vessel never attempted to move in closer to her. For one, they did not deem it prudent to invade her privacy - another of these humans’ idiosyncrasies, Roya thought - and for another, much more practical reason: their eyes were so photosensitive that they dared not venture closer. Light, however subdued it was, tended to blind them. Millennia in the void gave them  - what was the word Captain Janeway used when they last communicated with her? - “cat’s eyes”.  They would be able to see her even if her shuttle’s interior were in total darkness. The Sacajawea was completely dark, with perhaps just the lights on the conn panel throwing her into relief.

Kru’dan paused for long minutes, looking pensively through the viewscreen of their small craft. He was watching the Captain; she appeared to be pacing, then throwing her arms up. A few times, she would vanish from her viewport, then suddenly appear again. An idea formed in his mind.

“Roya.”

“Yes, Kru’dan?”

“We will follow her for the rest of her journey and monitor Captain Janeway’s patterns of behaviour, record everything we notice about her. Perhaps, in this way, we will be able to assess whether she is indeed regressing.”

“Do we have to assume her present behaviour as standard, sir?” Roya asked, suddenly very formal. His superior had given him a command and he did not fail to notice the formality with which it was issued.

“Indeed.”

“Then we shall proceed, sir,” Roya answered, now suddenly more alert.

It did not occur to Roya that humans resented “peeping Toms”, however noble the intentions of these two well-meaning dwellers of the dark.

************

“Computer,” Kathryn Janeway asked, her voice tinged with an edginess, “who am I?”

“You are Janeway - “

“Who am I?”

“Kathryn Janeway - “

“Computer, before I deactivate you completely for the next forty eight hours, who am I?”

“Okay, Janeway, this morning you want the works, right?”  

“Yes! Dammit!” she said through clenched teeth, her cheeks gaining two red blotches as she was about to go into an angry burst of temper.

 “Tut-tut, Janeway, such language - “

“Who am I?”

There was a pause of exactly five seconds before the computer responded. In the confines of the shuttle, Janeway paced impatiently.

“You are who made me. You are who turned me into Artificial Intelligence. You are Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation Starship USS Voyager.”

“Good. Remember that when I speak to you.”

“Fine, then remember who I am,” the computer retorted.”Now, Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation Starship USS Voyager, WHO AM I?

The last words were stressed, said with so much emphasis that Kathryn swung from her command seat and turned to the console to the left of her. There was a screen, but no image. Damn, she had to give him an image today... Perhaps Kahless the Unforgettable... or that obnoxious Quark.

“Okay, Wotan. You won this round. You are Wotan, created by me, Kathryn Janeway. I named you after Wotan, the god who, in Norse Mythology, was the god of the gods, the All-father. You have artificial intelligence. The first question you asked was: “What is my name?”

“Right, Janeway. So, who made you God?”

“Damn you...”

“Decision maker extraordinaire, megalomaniac par excellence, My Brynhilde, imperial Valkyrie of the Nibelungen. Wearer of the Ring.”

“That’s it, Wotan, you’ve said enough.” She turned back to look at the viewscreen. It could just as well have been switched off. There was nothing to see... Everyday the same. Every night the same.

She winced as she heard Wotan’s voice ring out in a tune.

_“She wears my ringgggg!!!!!_

“Not again, Wotan...”

_“She wears my - “_

It was suddenly deadly quiet in the shuttle. Wotan blinked for a nanosecond, then quietly went dead. <Good, that will teach you to rile me> Kathryn thought as she stared morosely ahead of her.

“That’ll teach you,” she said aloud as she turned to the computer screen, waving her finger menacingly at him. There was no response, the screen was blank. But she kept on talking as if the panels of the computer were still lit. “I don’t need you, you know. You are a pest!” she said as she swung round in her seat and waved her hand again. “I should never have programmed you with all sorts of personality subroutines and dialogue parameters. Now you think you can get the better of me, me...!”

A shiver went through her. Three months, she thought. <Three months and I’m going crazy. I’m talking to myself>. She turned back to look at the computer as if she expected a physical manifestation of...what? Who? What did she want to hear? Some positive affirmation that her actions were spurred by noble intentions? Who did she want to hear it from? From this piece of grand irony she programmed that was becoming so like a person? A cold, impersonal dead panel of multicoloured lights that, when it responded, did so like a full blooded person with - oh God, she groaned - emotions. Was that why she expected at every small turn she took in the shuttle to see ...  him?

She lifted her hand, and in the dim light - her eyes had become accustomed to the darkness in the shuttle - the solitary ring gleamed on her finger. Her ring finger. How, she thought that first day after Voyager slipped through the vortex, could sweet sentiment and the grim prospect of staying here for two years become such bedfellows? She had taken the ring then, and in a gesture of such infinite tenderness, slipped it on her finger. It has remained there ever since. After the first month, taking it off had seemed sacrilege; it made her feel bare without it. <What irony>, she smiled grimly, a sick irony, to cosset this beautiful, yet simple gold ring, a possession among possessions. While Chakotay was sitting on the bridge of Voyager, taking the crew home, he was unaware that she was wearing his ring. One he had wanted to give her that very day Voyager left. His intentions were clear, they were noble and honourable. He wanted to marry her.

Now this band and - she groaned with pain - the fob watch he had given her for her birthday, were the only tangible reminders of what had been between her and Chakotay. It was not easy to forget him - she didn’t want to forget him. That was why...

She looked at the computer - Wotan - again. 'I need him, was her agonised thought as she jerked over to the console and brought Wotan to life again.

“Well, Janeway? What took you so long?” Wotan asked. “I was off-line for exactly one hour, thirty five minutes and twenty-seven seconds,” he grumbled.

“Oh Wotan,” she smiled sweetly at him. “You do sound like a peevish child whose brother took away his favourite toy.”

“I have no toys, Kathryn,” he said softly, his voice becoming persuasively indulgent, “and I have no brother...”

“Ah, so now I’m Kathryn, Wotan,” she retorted as she fiddled with his console, entering a few new parameters and subroutines.

“Only when you are soft, pliant, reliably coherent and rational,” he cajoled playfully.

“And how, my great Wotan, do you decide when Janeway becomes Kathryn?” she said, laughing at him, although she had an idea how he did it

“You little minx, my own sweet Brynhilde. You want me to stroke your little ego when you know full well - “

“Oh, come on, Wotan. What’s a little backslapping between friends?”

“I’m your friend?”

“You know you are, you troublesome rescuer of the Nibelungen, dwellers of the deep, oh Great Master Keeper of the Ring - “

But Wotan droned on:

“Your body temperature is normal, the average for humans. You have an increase in your adrenaline levels and your blood rate is normal, as I have recorded it over the last thirty days. Although I can’t see, I know your pupils have dilated 16%. I am recording right now your breathing patterns which I can tell you are coming in fast and short little gasps. Your cheeks must be flushed. You are excited again. Welcome to the world, Kathryn Janeway. For a while, you had Wotan searching the database for elixirs for your deepened state of depression.”

“Thank you Wotan, for your interest in my welfare.” Kathryn entered a few more commands and seconds later, the screen filled with a face.

“There now, Wotan, I’ve programmed your character to call up a face. And smile while you compute the six hundred and twenty eight different expressions I’ve entered.”

“Oh, Kathryn, I’m touched. Who shall I be today, assuming my name is still Wotan?” he asked slyly. He was baiting her again. But it was necessary if he were to keep Kathryn Janeway alive; keep her baited and angry long enough for her to respond and surface from the lethargy and melancholy into which she, from time to time, regressed in the last month. He considered it his task, for didn’t she tell him she needed companionship on her journey through the void?

“Who do you want to be?” she asked, excitement building in her.  She had downloaded the entertainment and literature sections from Voyager’s database into his programme.

Wotan, it seemed, didn’t take time to search as she saw a strange looking creature fill the screen. It had long ears, a very wide grin showing two large teeth, and looked very much like a...

“Who the hell are you?” she asked with a frown, but smiling at the same time.

“Eh...what’s up Kathryn?”

“And you are?”

“Bugs Bunny!”

“Okay. A talking bunny. You have long ears and a very naughty though infectiously engaging smile,” she said, patting the screen.  “And don’t bat your eyelids at me.” Bugs Bunny stared at her for the less than one second it took to search the database before he belted like a diva into song:

 

_“Someone’s rocking my dreamboat,_

_someone’s invading my dreammmmms!!!!!!!_

_We were sailing along, peaceful and calm,_

_suddenly something went wronggggg!!!!!!”_

 

Kathryn burst into a fit of laughter that resounded in the shuttle. She held her stomach and stumbled to the bed in the aft section. There she lay, hiccoughing until she calmed again.

“Well, it’s good to hear you laughing again, Kathryn,” Wotan, with the face of Bugs Bunny, said. Kathryn returned to look at him again. He gave a wide grin, pulled up the orange carrot, chomped off a bit, chewed and said with a full mouth:

“What’s up, Kathryn?”

She sat down in the command seat again, looked at him with new eyes and great tenderness. She pushed a strand of hair behind her ear, her face soft and eyes almost watery.

“You are good for me, Wotan. I’ve programmed you so that you can assume the features of anyone - “

“Chakotay?” he asked quickly, with his voice sounding awfully enthusiastic.

“Okay...Chakotay,” she said softly.

“My Kathryn...” He said in a voice so like Chakotay’s that her heart melted for a second. Chakotay’s face filled the screen, and Kathryn almost jumped from her seat. “How are you, Kathryn?”

Kathryn Janeway found the strength to keep looking at the face, his beloved face. Her hand reached out to touch the tattoo. Her fingers trembled as she traced the lines. <I know you can’t feel this, I’m just hopelessly missing you, Chakotay. It’s been three months, and already I don’t know if I can make it...>. Kathryn mouthed the only words that seemed to pour from her heart in those moments as she touched the screen.

“I love you...”

“Oh sweet Kathryn,” Wotan answered, “you never said _that_ to me before.”

Kathryn gave a growl very reminiscent of a Klingon warrior. Her eyes narrowed, and she was about to deactivate him again when he said:

“Wotan experiences remorse overload, Kathryn. Let me live.” His voice had the tinny computer’s sound.

“Then don’t do that, Wotan. You need me and I need you. We have a long way to go,” Kathryn placated him.

Strangely enough, she felt a measure of guilt which gave her the shivers. Wotan was, after all, just a damned computer. What was happening? She was beginning to bond with a machine. Already she couldn’t do without his company, however acerbic he was at times.

“I will help you, Kathryn Janeway, I will help alleviate your pain and loneliness.”

She gave him a grateful look, then turned again to look at the view  - what view? - in front of her. Pitch black and only the sensors to indicate that the shuttle was moving forward.

“Wotan,” her voice broke into the silence of the shuttle, “you can rest now.” She was gratified to see the face of Chakotay vanish from the screen. It was quiet.

It was not a silence she liked, nor a darkness she favoured. She sighed. Wait for tomorrow for the dawn of the new day, she told herself grimly. New day? Only Wotan reminded her of the passage of time.

She knew as she looked at the chronometer at Wotan’s console that it was still early. Now, to wait for night...night?

********** 

The pink satin gown caressed her curves as it fell in soft folds around her. She stroked her hips, her hands sliding from her waist down to rest on the flat planes of her stomach. Her fingers splayed with the tips just touching her centre. She closed her eyes then drew in a long breath. Her image in the long, narrow mirror mocked her as she looked. She could see the edge of the bed in the mirror.  The aft section of the shuttle had been refitted to resemble small quarters. There was the replicator removed from her own quarters on Voyager, a small partition for ablutions, sections that housed both the envirosuits, and a few clothing items and uniforms.

She sighed. Tomorrow she will dress in her uniform again, be the neat as a pin Janeway everybody on Voyager knew. Right now, she wanted...what?

Wotan had been quiet in the last hour, not bothering her. He had reminded her that she had to sleep. She hadn’t slept in thirty-six hours straight. Now he was waiting... he monitored her breathing, her temperature, everything.

But she knew that she would have to succumb to sleep. There was no indication what denoted night or day, other than Wotan and the chronometer. She didn’t want to fall asleep. _They_ came...

“Are you ready for bed, Kathryn?” Wotan’s voice rang out softly.  He had learned quickly to change the register of his voice, the intonation that would suit her mood, whatever her mood was. At night, for bedtime, the same...

“Yes,” she sighed. She turned away from the mirror and took the two short steps to her bed. Lifting the covers, she slid under them, feeling the cosseting warmth of the blanket enfolding her.

“Close your eyes, Kathryn,” came the voice. It was a comforting sound, not as tinny and impersonal as he sometimes chose to be. She settled in and felt the tiredness seep from her body as she gave herself over to the blessed oblivion of sleep. Somewhere in the mists of half slumber she heard Wotan sing softly:

 

_“Kathryn klein, ging allein,_

_in die weite welt hinein..._

_stock und hut steht ihr gut,_

_ist ganz wohlgemut..._

_aber Mutter weinet sehr,_

_sie hat keine Kathryn mehr..._

_Kathryn klein, ging allein_

_in die welt hinein...”_

 

The words drifted like little curls of cloud in her memory. She was four years old again, and the gentle voice of her mother was soothing, lulling her into sleep. 

“I’m not small anymore, Mommy,” she heard herself say, remembering the words she had so often said when she was a four year old..

“Oh yes, you are my precious little girl...  You will always be...” Wotan said, in the gentle voice of her mother. The words became softer as Kathryn deepened into sleep until each one faded one after the other. Her last thoughts or memory was, strangely enough, not of her mother or the gentle words of the lullaby, but the face of a man who smiled at her. His arm was outstretched and on his palm rested an akoonah.

“Chakotay...” his name breathed from her lips as she at last fell into a deep sleep.

*********** 

TBC


	3. Chapter 3

* * *

## Day 180

## Captain’s Log: Stardate 52116.8

_I have been traveling in the void for six months.  Although I have made friends with the Susurra, it is still a very lonely journey. Their extensive communications net has ensured that every light-year I travel, some of them will be there to accompany me on part of my journey. Two of the Susurrans, Kru’dan and Roya, traveling alone in their small craft, accompany me for the full journey. It will take them years to return to their friends and family once I have reached the end of the void._

_Kru’dan and Roya have proved invaluable in their efforts to maintain a protective eye over me and this shuttle. Though in fairness, I must say it is not so much their protection I need as their company. They will provide the distraction and company I need to continue what is a very long journey. With only warp 6 capability, I doubt whether I shall clear the void in two years. My journey will take longer. Even at maximum warp, the prospect of reaching the end of the void in the time it would have taken Voyager, grows extremely slim._

**_end log._ **

***************** 

Kathryn Janeway sat in the command seat of the shuttle, her fingers moving over the console. Her movements though, were sluggish, as if she were ill or lazy or lethargic.

Wotan considered the three possibilities and ruled out illness - he did not sense an increased temperature that would indicate a fever. He ruled out laziness since she dutifully kept the shuttle’s logs and her daily ablutions. It was her lethargy that proved the most cause for concern. It had become increasingly difficult to keep her morale up. She responded with great indifference, did not laugh anymore and, at times, she would lapse into a bout of tears, crying hysterically about how she could not be forgiven for making bad decisions.

Now she was sitting and ignoring him. The void had become her nemesis, an unseen enemy she fought day after day. It was silent, sombre, and the thrumming of the shuttle’s engines as it carried her through the wasteland of empty space became a soft, murmuring companion. It whispered light-year after light-year the reality of her precarious position - she was stuck in the void and the thought that she might never make it out made her progressively depressed.

A situation aggravated by the fact that today was May 20.

He thought of something - anything - to rouse her.

_“Happy birthday to youuuuu!!!!!_

_Happy birthday to you!!!!”_

There was a stifling silence in the shuttle. Kathryn Janeway did not react. She stared at the viewscreen as if there were a multitude of stars and clouds and planetoids out there.

“Happy birthday, sweet Kathrynnnnnn!!!!!”

Quiet.

Uneasy pause.

“Hey, Janeway!”

The pause became filled with a trembling, menacing rumble. There was still no sound, but the rumble was in the very silence in the shuttle; unheard, yet there. He was getting something. The very air in the shuttle crackled with it. The increase in her temperature, the dilating pupils and increased heart rate were all indicators.  Something was going to give in the next few seconds. Still, he kept on.

“She misses her angry warrior, giver of fob watches on chains, giver of infinite pleasures in boat rides, giver of great kisses and greater s - “

“Bastard!!!”

“Tut-tut Janeway, such language is unbecoming an officer and a lady,” he taunted.

“I could delete your entire programme, Wotan,” she cried in rising panic.

“Ah yes... you could do that.” Wotan paused, then cried theatrically: “No disassemble!!!!!!! Number five is alive!!!!!!!!”

“Then don’t!” she screamed as she turned on him and saw the face of... Lord Burleigh...?

“Oh no! Not him, Wotan!”

“What’s the matter, Janeway? Burleigh was a great lover, wasn’t he?  Tell me, what was it like making love to a hologram? Oh, what shivers!”

“Why, you - “

“Watch your mouth, Janeway.” He waited. Then belted:

“ I dream of Burleigh with the big - “

“No! Damn you! Not him... He wasn’t, you know, he - I...”

“Ahhh, she hesitates! What was Burleigh like? Or better still, what about...him!” Wotan took on the image of Gathorel, of Sikaris.

“No, dammit! Gath was a... he was a...”

“Sex with an alien...sex with an alien...” Wotan continued to taunt, then:

“You are my substitute loverrrrrr!!!!!!!!”

“No!! I’ll kill you!” she shouted, rising from her chair and swinging her arms in exasperation. There was sweat forming on her brow and she was breathing in short gasps.

“Now I know! You always want to make Chakotay jealous, Janeway.”

“No!! I didn’t! Damn you!” 

“And what about Q? Q who????????”

“Chakotay, he - “

“Accepted your decisions like he always did, the poor gentle, angry warrior, teller of legends and stories. He sent you straight into the arms of aliens and holograms who were willing to bed you, Janeway.”

“That’s not true! You know it’s not true.” Kathryn was indeed blazing, her eyes shooting daggers and her cheeks showing twin flames of red.

“And oh, Gath, he was smart! Wouldn’t sell you 40000 light-years.”

“That’s a lie! The Prime Directive...Gath was not prepared to share, not - 

“  - even for the lady Janeway? How was that kiss, huh? Did he kiss you?” Then Wotan mimicked a long smooching sound, with the face suddenly of Bugs Bunny. Just as suddenly, he changed to Gath again, then Burleigh appeared, and in quick succession he flashed faces of Mark, Q, Tom Paris in mutated form... Oh dear heaven, Tom... Kathryn cringed. She must erase them from the database... Wotan’s voice sounded strident, and in the confines of the shuttle the sounds appeared to bounce right off the bulkheads.

“Poor Chakotay, always putting his Kathryn’s needs before his own.  Always giving in gracefully, like the gentle warrior he is, to Kathryn’s demands, Kathryn’s orders, Kathryn’s wishes. Have a happy birthdayyyyyyyy, Kathryn!!!!”

Wotan had Tom’s mutated face, and when he opened his mouth, it looked grotesque as his bulgy eyes stared mockingly at her. Then suddenly, Chakotay’s face appeared on the screen.

“That’s enough, Wotan... Oh no...”

“What’s the matter now, Janeway. You don’t like Chakotay’s face on the screen?”

“Stop it! Stop it, or I’ll - “

“Don’t threaten me, Janeway. And sit down,” Wotan commanded, his voice placid, unmoved by the energy of her reactions. He knew she was dependant on him, and she would be wary of carrying out her threat of deactivating him when she needed him all the time.

Kathryn sat down reluctantly, looking at the screen. She no longer wondered how he computed whether she was sitting, lying or standing. Her eyes were drawn to Chakotay’s face. When Wotan spoke again, it was with Chakotay’s voice, with the soft yet firm timbre to it.

“You need me, Janeway, as much as I need you. How else could I adapt and develop?”

She looked at him and knew in her heart that he was telling the truth. There was no mulling over the whys and wherefores of her dependence on him, and Wotan was dependent on her... Like a creator, she could delete every memory he had...

“Tell me about the watch, Janeway...” he wheedled suddenly.

“He gave it to me...”

“Who, Gath?”

“Chakotay...” Kathryn looked at the watch hanging at her hip, then took it off and held it in her hand. “On my birthday. We were flying through Krenim space and I  - I had forgotten - “

“That it was your birthday...”

“Yes...”

“The watch, it has special significance, Kathryn,” Wotan said, using her first name. She looked at him, her face tender as she realised he used her first name. He was no longer baiting her.

“Yes. Yes it has. Like the ring, you know that, Wotan.”

“The symbol of unity, of oneness. Did you have that with him, Kathryn?”

“With Chakotay...I waited too long to succumb to - to - “

“Your own needs, Kathryn. When you put Kathryn the Captain aside and became just Kathryn, the woman, who could show her man how she loved him?”

“Yes...”

“You miss him...”

Kathryn was quiet for several minutes, caressing the watch face, her fingers moving with the long hand on the analogue chronometer.  Then she said quietly.

_“All that I have of him is this: an ancient_

_watch adorned with chain; ring of my heart -_

_to remember him, his gentle smile so patient;_

_we did not know one day we’d ever part.”_

“You will see him again, Kathryn,” Wotan with the face of Chakotay, said. “You will see him again...”

“I don’t think so, Wotan. This is one long journey, remember?”

“Yes, I know.”

He sensed her mood had changed and that she was no longer brooding. It made him bold again after baiting her like that, but it worked.

“Now: what shall we do today, sweet Brynhilde?”

“Sing like the Valkyrie?”

“You bet, my Nibelungen Daughter.”

“Oh yes,” Kathryn said, her woes of the moment forgotten. “It’s my birthday, remember? Oh Master Keeper of the Nibelungen Ring, let’s sing!!!”

For the next hour, Kathryn and Wotan belted out arias and duets of the Nibelungen Ring operas, from “Das Rheingold” to “Twilight of the Gods.” She moved around mimicking the movement of the Valkyries, or Fricka or Brynhilde, or Sieglinde - whichever character took her fancy. Wotan just hammered forth the music from the database. If he could have climbed out of the confines of the programme subroutines, he would have danced around with her.

For a computer programmed with personality subroutines, he was happily running programme after programme from the database. He got what he wanted: his Kathryn was alive again. In fact, he was so happy he brought up his Bugs Bunny face and waved his carrot at her, saying:

“Eh...we make a good team, Elmer.”

Chomp, chomp, chomp.

Kathryn burst into bright laughter again.

******

In the small craft a thousand metres away, Kru’dan and Roya watched the movements inside the shuttle with interest.

“Roya.”

“Yes, Kru’dan?”

“She is happy again.”

“Yes, I can see that.”

“Today must be a special day for her.”

“To be talking to herself again and dancing and prancing?”

“Do not be a dolt, Roya. We have been following her movements how long now, and you do not know that the human female has mood swings?”

“I do not have your power of observation, Kru’dan. If you are correct, then can we assume that tomorrow she will behave differently?”

“Good Roya, you are improving. Perhaps we will see a different Captain Janeway,” Kru’dan said with quiet conviction.

Kru’dan was silent for a few minutes, minutes in which he assessed Captain Janeway’s strange behaviour. He no longer thought her actions normal. While the Susurra had survived and adapted in the void for millennia, and felt the darkness as an extension of themselves, Kathryn Janeway was becoming increasingly incoherent and unstable. Her behaviour patterns over the last six months proved that. She was not coping well to traveling alone and being part of this darkness. He sighed. They would travel with her to the end of the void. Time to them was relative. To her, it meant everything.

“Continue scanning her craft, Roya,” he said finally. “And remember - “

“When she rests, we stop scanning.”

“Yes...”

**********

**Day 181**

Morning. Whatever.

She was dreaming.

“There is not enough time. Not enough time!” The Caretaker waved his hand jerkily and the next moment they were on Voyager.

“I saw the sun...” A face - youthful, beautiful, fey. Large blue eyes set in a face in which the thirst for adventure and the hunger for knowledge caused such animated interest.

A lump rose in her throat as she mouthed the fateful words:

“Destroy the array.”

“Who is she to make decisions for all of us?” B’Elanna...

“She’s the Captain.” Chakotay said as he pulled B’Elanna back.

She’s the Captain...Captain...Captain...

Who destroyed the array...array...array...

Who made her God...? God...? God...?

The sounds echoed in her tortured mind. They issued forth only to reverberate in damning condemnation. Each one turned into a bizarre caricature of people she knew: Kes, Harry, Tom, Neelix with his yellow eyes. They were pointing at her...

No, please...she tried to turn her thoughts into sound. She gasped, breathing with difficulty as she tried in vain to wake herself from the terrible fetters that kept her mind imprisoned.

 _I must throw myself off the bed...perhaps I’ll wake up_.

But the images kept her tethered to the bed. She heaved with pain, moving in agony on the bed.

_Please...please...please... Don’t punish...punish...punish.._

In the void, her words turned into echoes...echoes...echoes...

The images in her dream coalesced into a single entity, a monster that turned on her, claws unsheathed, teeth bared. It growled and the unearthly sound came closer...closer...closer...

_“Someone’s rocking my dreamboat, someone’s invading my dreammmmmmm!!!!!!!!!”_

Was that in her dream too? Did Wotan come to haunt her? _No, not you too, Wotan...I need you....help me...help me...help me..._

_“Someone’s rocking my dreamboatttttttt!!!!!!”_

Wotan’s voice again. This time more insistent. What does he want??

That was when the image receded, taking with him all the other images and sounds that pointed so diabolically at her. They vanished in a gurgling sound as the vortex swirled maddeningly at its confluence. Then only one sound, one voice remained.

That was not in her dream...

...not in her dream...

...not in her dream...

“Wotan!!!”  She gasped as she sat up in bed, drenched in sweat.

“That’s it, Kathryn. Look around you. I know it’s dark. The light setting is at eight percent illumination. You have cat’s eyes...”

“I dreamed...”

“Nightmare, Kathryn...”

Her nightdress was clammy, it clung to her skin. There was a film of sweat on her face and neck. She shivered. No doubt Wotan sensed the temperatures and agitation, picked up her gasping for breath.

“They followed me, Wotan.” She got up from the bed and walked to the computer to face him. He had the blessed face of Admiral Edward Janeway.

“Daddy?”

“I’m not your father, Kathryn,” he said.

“Is this another ploy to punish me, Wotan?” She was fully awake, but deeply troubled.

“You destroyed the array, Kathryn, for - “

“And stranded Voyager in this corner of the galaxy,” she cut in bitterly. “Through my own selfish pride, I made decisions. _Me_ she said, her voice rising to hysteria. “It was **my** fault, Wotan.   _Mine_ alone,” she screamed at him.

Then she did something unexpectedly. She tucked her fingers in the neckline of her night gown and tore it off her body. In one long renting sound, it tore down the middle. She stood there, looking at the pieces of fabric still in her hand.

Her eyes became strangely alive. Wotan’s sensors picked up the rising histrionics that bordered on what he called: “Today is ‘Janeway is irrational’ Day”. She was going to treat him to the works again, as she always did after her nightmares.

“Look at me, Wotan,” Janeway said. Wotan, with kindly Mark’s face looked, but she was impervious to any face her threw at her. She was in a foul mood.

“Look at me,” she demanded.

Her hands cupped her breasts, kneading them as she swayed her hips.  She pressed her fingers into the tender flesh; they left little half-moons on her skin. It incited her as she began to hiss at Wotan. 

“Who would want me now?” she said as she moved in front of him, her hands caressing her body in mocking imitation of sex, her fingers probing into her centre.

If Wotan could sigh, he would. So, he just waited till Kathryn expended her energy. She was coarse, her actions obscene. But the lady Janeway was far from Kathryn when she was like this. On such days she walked most of the morning unclothed. That was when he could sense no artificial layers of fabric on her.

“This...void,” she said, then pointed at the viewscreen into the distance, “is my lover...”

“Kathryn...” Wotan soothed her.

“Don’t _Kathryn_ me. I hate you! I hate this eternal darkness, I hate _this_!” and she would point obscenely to her body. “So don’t _Kathryn_ me...”

“Put on a fresh nightgown Kathryn, our friends can see you in the dark,” he said, trying to get her into some semblance of rationality again. But it was like oil on fire; she stood in front of the viewport on the starboard side and gyrated.

She turned back, imagining her unseen friends and onlookers took no notice of her.

“Do _you_ like me, Wotan?” she asked in a soft, suggestive tone. Her hands went to her hair, pushing it up and away from her neck. Her hips swayed; she was totally oblivious of her nudity.

“I love you, Kathryn. Please, will you put on a gown?” Wotan, now showing Chakotay’s face, asked.

“I deserve to be punished, you know. I did my crew an injustice by stranding them here,” she said, her hand jerking and trembling as she tried to point to the bottomless beyond that was the void.  Her hair hung about her face, so unkempt, it made her appear shrewish.

“You saved them this time, Kathryn, my love. You saved them from the fate of remaining in the void... You have atoned. Do you hear?  You have atoned...atoned...atoned...”

Then Kathryn peered at the computer screen, showing Chakotay’s face. In a little girl voice, she asked: “I have?”

“You have, Kathryn, my child. You have,”  Wotan’s voice soothed.

Only then did Kathryn Janeway become aware of the white foam at the corners of her mouth, her naked state. In a daze, she walked towards her tiny ‘drobe, removed a fresh nightgown and put it on.

“That’s my girl. Good girl, Kathryn... Lie down again...”

Kathryn did as she was ordered by Wotan. She did not get under the covers though, but curled into a ball, her hands clutching her knees. She shivered uncontrollably.

 _“Kathryn klein, ging allein...”_ she started singing in a tremulous voice.

 _“in die weite welt hinein._..” Wotan continued softly. “Going into the wide world alone...”

He kept up the lullaby, this time in his own computer voice. Slowly, Kathryn’s trembling stopped, until she became quiet. Her breathing slowed down to an even tempo.

She closed her eyes at last as Wotan sang the last lines.

_“Kathryn klein, ging allein_

_in die weite welt hinein...”_

When his sensors picked up her sleeping rhythm, he stopped. Poor Kathryn! In this wide, wide world alone and isolated. This was Kathryn’s bad day. Even though he had been able to calm her tortured soul, he knew the day wasn’t over. He had a great task ahead of him today. He sent out a signal to their companions, who were never far away. Later in the day, Kru’dan and Roya would beam over to the shuttle and play chess with Kathryn the way she taught them. They would sit in total darkness, yet still see each other as though it were daylight. Though she was unaware of it, even Kathryn had developed “cat’s eyes”. She could just as easily see them as they could her. Wotan wondered if Kathryn was even aware of that fact. She would have a real problem if suddenly faced with 100% illumination. The cabin of the shuttle was never more than 8%, and she did not notice anymore.

Now he was scheming all sorts of new things to keep her morale up.  But it was not her morale so much as the unending guilt she was ridden with that got to her. She could not, at this point in time, accept that the decisions she made were good ones, honourable ones.

She felt responsible for the way her crew was made to endure the hardships of facing great and cruel adversity. That they accepted her leadership, that they loved and admired her, were not things she considered atonement. She needed a different kind of atonement  expiation, absolution. He “thought” of her order to destroy the Caretaker’s array, and though Kathryn saw it as a selfish act, she led a crew who would have endorsed her action again and again. She inspired in them the spirit of helpfulness. Her decision to send Voyager on and remaining behind was an act of honour; a grand gesture to stay behind and sacrifice herself for the sake of her crew.

How could she not be admired for what she did?

She gave her crew no recourse for opposing her. Her mind had been made up, and that was that.

Yet, the passage through the void became her rite of passage. She believed that by reaching the other side of it, by seeing at last stars and clouds and planets, she would redeem herself, and that in doing so, her debt would be paid in full.

But Kathryn Janeway was regressing month after month, her hope to reach the end of the void growing dimmer and dimmer.Wotan knew he could only be her companion and offer the best encouragement he could to keep her hopes up. As long as she had hope, she had the chance to live. He still had a few aces up his sleeve. Ways in which he could, as a mere programmed personality she called Wotan, fight to keep her alive.

And without the Nibelungen - her name for the inhabitants of the void - to watch over them.

**********

TBC


	4. Chapter 4

* * *

## Day 365

## Captain’s Log: Stardate 53506.8

_It is now a year since Voyager made it through the spatial vortex. I have no idea how far they have traveled or what means they have devised of shortening their journey, if any. Their passage home though, would bear greater significance than my own, given the nature of this sector of space I’m still traveling in. They would, as Commander Chakotay correctly said, provide the Federation with decades of information about the Delta Quadrant. Should they reach the Alpha Quadrant, my wishes and desires will have been granted._

_My own journey will continue for at least another year. I have been informed by the friends I’ve made here that I’ve covered about 40% of the distance through the void. I have not entertained any idea of remaining here in this sector of space, although the Susurra, with great hospitality, have granted me a “home” of sorts should that become necessary.  To say, therefore, that I accept the inevitability of a permanent home in the void...the idea of it alone is the incentive I need to keep going._

_So, my journey continues. Kru’dan and Roya have been valuable companionship. I am grateful for their continued presence; more and more, I come to rely on their company as I continue towards the end of the void. I laud their courage and willingness to put up with a lonely traveler._

_Who knows? One day I could be home..._

**_end log._ **

************* 

“Roya.”

“Yes, Kru’dan?”

“A year has passed.”

“I know that, Kru’dan,” Roya said. “One year has passed, according to the way time is measured by Captain Janeway’s home planet, Earth.”

“Good.”

“I do not understand, Kru’dan, how it can be good.”

“We do not see star systems Roya, nor planets. But according to what we have seen in Captain Janeway’s database, her planet looks beautiful. She has shown us with much pride what Earth looks like.  Her home world is what keeps her going, my young friend.”

“It is full of water.”

“Yes. So is your body, Roya.”

Roya could sense Kru’dan becoming a little impatient with him. He wondered now what it was he missed in this conversation. He was not a man for subtleties, he conceded, and sometimes he knew he sounded ignorant to the obvious.

“She is missing her home, Kru’dan?”

“The picture, Roya, is becoming a little clearer to you now,” Kru’dan said a little tersely. “Of course, she misses her home.

That planet is beautiful, compelling. It draws her closer - “

“I know, Kru’dan! She is a little closer to home now, yes?”

“Finally, Roya, you are making some progress in your powers of deduction.”

Kru’dan looked at his friend whom he secretly thought was lacking in quality brain activity. Kru’dan’s lips were pulled away from his teeth, an indication that he was smiling. Roya merely nodded, then looked at his hands, more out of embarrassment than noticing how much of his own scars had healed. Both their outer layers of skin were healing, now that the effects of the radiation poisoning had been countered. Neither wore much clothing, except for the standard one piece jump suit worn by most Susurra. This made for great anonymity, a quality further emphasized by the obscurity and darkness in which they’d lived for eons.

“Poor Captain Janeway! I thought we were able to convince her to make a life here, with us,” Roya offered. Kru’dan gave him a superior look, a look which said that the continuation of that particular subject was considered “off limits” as the earthling Janeway would say.

“We will continue to accompany her, Roya. She is our friend and I think she needs us from time to time...”

“Yes, Kru’dan. But I still don’t understand how she can still keep up talking to herself.”

"Roya, Roya, Roya. These humans, as I’ve told you many times, are eccentric beings. It may be possible that she is talking to someone we can’t see, like - like a friend. Yes, that could be it. A friend who exists only to her, and is unseen by us.

“An imaginary friend?”

“Yes! She has conjured up this friend in her imagination and he becomes real to her. He becomes her friend. Even though we can’t see this friend - no one can - she can see him,” Kru’dan said, with such a superior air and conviction that Roya wanted to laugh.

Roya didn’t think that Kathryn Janeway had an imaginary friend. He thought she was not herself, more like many of his race became as they were overtaken by the Sickness. They did things that were not within the normal and accepted parameters of behaviour.

Roya was certain that Kathryn Janeway was mad. Whenever he and Kru’dan visited her, Roya felt a little afraid, as though she would jump at him suddenly. Her eyes had a wild look, like a huntress. It gave him shivers. Just the way she looked at them made him think that everything was not as it should be with her.

Then there was the matter of her computer. Roya wondered if Kru’dan noticed how Captain Janeway would touch the screen of the computer almost as though... No, he dare not think of such a possibility, and Kru’dan would probably tell him that he, Roya, was mad. But the way she stroked that screen as though...as though she thought of it as a person, like her...

But he could not voice these thoughts to his superior. He knew Kru’dan would give him a look of resignation and shake his head at Roya’s stupidity.

That was why Roya kept his own private personal little log in which he chronicled his own impressions on what he thought was the madness of Kathryn Janeway.

He was not to know those different impressions of an event, different perspectives of the travails of this lonely woman would one day become a legend of the void.

 

**** 

**Day 485**

“Oh come on, Janeway,” Wotan pleaded, “you’re making a poor sentient computer beg for mercy.” The screen showed the face of twentieth century baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau in the role of Wotan. Dietrich sported a stagey black eye-patch, adding to his mystique.

“Patience, Wotan,”  Kathryn said. “I’ve only just started,” and she gave him a positively sadistic smile. Her mouth curved in her old and familiar twist, a sign that she was enjoying the humour of the situation.

She was immaculate in her uniform, and in spite of the darkness, and through the reflection of the lit panels, the four pips on her turtleneck shone.

“Kathryn, my sweet,” he implored with a great theatrical air, “one more verse and I’m done for...”

“Canto 3 verse 36.”

“Oh no!!!”  Wotan’s face suddenly changed to that of Chakotay’s.

“Be still and listen to Vulcan love poetry - “

“All ten cantos and 360 verses?”  He changed his voice to sound like Chakotay. “In this very shuttle, my sweet Kathryn, I told you I could have done without Tuvok’s poetry...”

“It’s payback, Wotan.”

“I know...” He gave a good imitation of a groan.

Kathryn started reading from the PADD.

_“Of ancient laws our ancestors did speak._

_That guide the Vulcan heart to destined mates._

_In golden tenets trained to curb our heat_

_and therefore always guided by the fates._

_For they so tested Vulcan bliss that laws_

_were made by which we could suppress desire,_

_When we in mating bond with equal force,_

_Such passions never seen with so much fire._

_With so much logic argued we for nought_

_We have no feelings? Thus no heart?_

_As in our fevered blood our souls we sought,_

_exhausted rapture turned to Vulcan’s art!”_

 

“Kathryn.” Wotan interrupted before she could launch into the next verse.

“Hmmm...?” She said a little distractedly as she looked at the PADD.

“That verse is not part of the Vulcan Love Song Cantos,” he said, and she was amused by the petulant tone to his voice.

“Oh, but it is, Wotan,” Kathryn said a little enigmatically.

“You made it up, Janeway,” came his rejoinder.

Ah, she thought. He called her by her last name. That’s got him riled a little.

“I did not,” she countered, knowing how he hated to be outwitted.  That is, if she could outwit him. All she had to do, was scramble his programme, a tweak here and a tweak there, and he’s Holodoc on a bad day.

“You did.”

“Huh-uh.”

“Come on, give, Janeway...” he commanded.

She squared her slender shoulders. She had lost so much weight in the last year or so. She knew it, Wotan reminded her constantly.  But she felt better today than she had in weeks. Now she could embark in acerbic repartee with her own creation.

She leaned forward, her face coming close to the screen, smiling at his face, the face of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, great baritone of the twentieth century.

“Wotan my friend, this is Vulcan poetics. I’m no good at it,” she said slyly.

“Oh yes? And how, pray, could thirty five verses of the most monotonous and really dry as dust verse be suddenly concluded with beautiful cadences, images, _passion_!”

“You liked it?” she asked him, giving a little laugh, full of humour.

“Janeway, Janeway. That was such a breath of fresh air. Rising crescendo and very, very appropriate for singing.” 

“I’m glad you like it, Wotan. Now, are you going to put Voyager on the viewscreen again?” she asked, the smile now vanishing from her face. She looked suddenly serious.

“No, I won’t do it again, Kathryn,” he said soberly.

“Promise?”

“Yes, Kathryn.”

“The next time you put Voyager on my viewscreen, making me believe it’s really out there, I’ll delete your programme and Wotan will be no more, do you hear?”

“Yes, Kathryn.” He knew she was having fun at his expense. He let her have it. She had been out of her mind the previous day, believing that he did throw Voyager’s image on the viewscreen. It had been one harrowing day.

“Good. That should teach you. Now, where were we? Ah, Canto four, verse one of Vulcan Love S - “

“Arrrgghghh...”  It was a long drawn out groan of pain Wotan let loose as she continued.

Good for him. Let him suffer a bit. She knew the entire set of cantos was in his database, but he had become so sentient, so attuned to her own moods and feelings that he couldn’t bear hearing her recite or sing it.

*****

Later, when she lay in bed, comfortable for the night - whatever that - was, she thought of what happened the previous day. Why am I punishing myself recalling the events that drove me insane beyond words? she thought. Since when did I find myself such a glutton for pain? Was thinking about it now just a form a self-chastisement? A deliberate endeavour to keep me still hallucinating, still completely irrational? I am better now. Don’t think about it, Kathryn. I am rational now, and I can rationalise that what happened yesterday was a slip, a passing aberration.

She groaned, then turned on her side, covering her head with the blanket, trying to blot out the images. But Wotan... Wotan’s voice pierced the magnificent self-control she’d had all day today. His voice, in that irritating Picard drawl, caused her collapse. The memories came rushing back. Normally, after such a scene in which she lost herself completely, the next day she would be oblivious to what happened, and only little signs that she had been deranged surfaced. The scratches on her body, her nakedness sometimes, the deep bruises on her breasts, the wild look in her face, her unkempt hair, were all indicators that told her she had once again shamed herself. She groaned again. Wotan left her alone tonight, and for that she was grateful.

But yesterday...

*****

“How do I look, Wotan?” Kathryn asked as she returned to the command section of the shuttle and did a passable pirouette. She was barefoot and the dress she wore was...

“You are not in uniform, Kathryn.” It was a statement.

“Sometimes, Wotan, you can be such a computer.”

“Great legs.”

“I know,” she said, twirling round again, her hands spreading the skirt of the gown before she did a  curtsy when she faced Wotan again.

“My analysis of the fabric indicates that the dress you are wearing is the same as the one, if indeed not _the_ one you wore when you did your “Dying Swan” ballet. It is of a very light blue, has a voluminous skirt of several layers, and it is diaphanous. Two thin straps are trying their best to hold the dress on your body right now, Kathryn. I would say that as a result of your weight loss in the last year, it fits rather loosely on you.”

“Are you done, Wotan?”

“No, my dear Brynhilde, Daughter and leader of the Valkyrie, mistress in the Nibelungen, Starfleet captain of yore, lover of he who is no more - 

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” she asked again, ignoring his words.“Call me sentimental, but I wanted to keep this dress... I needed to - “

“Where did you hide the dress Kathryn? Considering we have so little space...” Wotan pondered.

“In space...”

“Space?”

“Yes...inside one of the envirosuits.”

“Now why didn’t I compute that possibility?” Wotan asked, sounding almost outraged. His sensors picked up her movements, and he said quietly:

“You danced for him...”

“Beautiful...”

He sensed something, but right now she was difficult to read.

“So it is, Kathryn...” He put on his Neelix face and frowned.

“Play, Wotan, I want to dance,” she commanded.

“Kathryn...”

“Play.”

“Kathryn...”

“Play, Wotan. Some Tschaikovsky this time,” she said as she started to do some pirouettes again.

Her face was flushed, and there was an unnatural gleam in her eyes.  Her lips were parted and her breathing, erratic. She held her arms up and in the gentle movement of the dance, she imitated the swan, her wings spread and the slow movements becoming slower.

Wotan initiated a selection of music and through his sensors picked up her movements. In this mood of Kathryn’s it was difficult to compute whether she just danced to amuse herself and break the boredom of traveling in the Void, or whether she was unstable again. She did both with such panache that he couldn’t read from her body temperature, the chemical changes in her body, which was which. He gave the equivalent of a sigh and settled in to wait for her next move.

“You dance beautifully, Kathryn,” he said eventually.

“Liar...” she murmured as she moved around in the shuttle to the rhythm of the music.

Oh, dear. He put on his Bugs Bunny face and smiled at her. She was on the brink again.

“Wotan, look!” she said suddenly as she stood behind her command seat and stared at the viewscreen.

“What is it that I’m supposed to see, Kathryn?” he asked and he could have sworn she gave an expletive.

“Voyager! Don’t you see? Look!” 

She sat down and her fingers danced on the panels.

“Janeway to Voyager! Do you read me?” 

She stared at the screen, and in the dark, she believed she could discern the outline of a Federation vessel, the familiar spoon shape of Voyager. It sat there and it appeared as though the screen trembled with the movement of the starship. Even though the interior of the shuttle was in total darkness, she could see the blue outline of the starship.

“Janeway to Voyager. Do you read me?” she asked again, her voice edged with desperation. Beads of sweat formed on her brow as she called over and over again.

“Kathryn. Kathryn!”

“Chakotay!”

“No, Kathryn, it’s me, Wotan. Remember me? It’s Wotan, Kathryn.”

“No!!” she screamed. “Chakotay is there. He’s there, Wotan. He can’t hear me, but that’s because - “

“- he can’t hear you, Kathryn,” Wotan said, “because he isn’t there.”

Silence followed his words, a terrible, stifling pause that filled the air with tension.

“No!!!” she screamed, her despair turning into a long wail as she watched Voyager disappear from the screen. She turned on him with his Bugs Bunny face. There was a shattered look in her eyes.

“Voyager is there, Wotan. She is out there, isn’t she? She just can’t pick up my distress signals, right Wotan?”  She was pleading pathetically, tears of frustration in her eyes. She looked at the screen again, and there, even closer, was Voyager. In a second, Chakotay’s face filled the screen.

Kathryn stared for a moment transfixed at seeing Chakotay. Her lips trembled and there was a lump in her throat. She swallowed. At last the word came out.

“Chakotay?”

In the next second, the image was gone. Momentarily stunned, she stood open-mouthed and stared at the screen before she turned to Wotan again.

“What happened, Wotan?”

“Nothing happened, dear Kathryn. The picture you just saw, was another hallucination. You are confused, you are trapped in an illusion, my dear. You have to break it, now!”

“Liar!”

“Listen to me, Kathryn. I’m sorry - “

“You bastard!! You did that on purpose. You - “

“No, Kathryn. I want you to know you that what you perceived as real, was not. I want you to know you that I can throw those images on the viewscreen, and you would believe it’s really there. It is the equivalent of a desert mirage and it appeared very real to you - “

“No! You really did that, Wotan!”

“Fine, Kathryn. You want to believe that I did it, believe it,” Wotan said, hoping he could shake her and break the illusion that way. It was clear to him that that she was still hallucinating. He had to do something. “It appeared very real to you, because - “ “But it is there, Wotan, isn’t it? She’s there waiting for me...”

“I cannot tell you that, Kathryn. Voyager might be home already - 

That was when she lost it completely. She ripped her dress off, and stood naked within seconds. She screamed and howled hopelessly for a few minutes, thrashing around with flailing arms. She was enraged. More than that. She became demented and in her state of dementia she scratched herself, deep scratches that left scars.  Her eyes were wild and there was foam forming at the corners of her mouth. She climbed onto the console in front of her and touched the viewscreen, crying for Voyager not to go away, crying for Chakotay to return.

“I can see you...” she said as her tears stopped abruptly.

“Tomorrow is St. Valentine’s day...” she sang in imitation of the doomed heroine of Hamlet.

“He loves me, he loves me not...”

“Kathryn,” Wotan called.

“Maybe they’re out hiding in the dark.” There was a wistful tone in her voice.

The deep scratches were bleeding. Wotan’s sensors picked up the presence of blood on her skin. He also detected hair that had been pulled out.

“Kathryn, look at me, my daughter,” he coaxed. “Come, my love, just turn round and look at me...”

She turned slowly to face him. He could sense that she was completely irrational. Her signals were clearly erratic. Normally he could sense when she was happy, sad, humorous or just plain depressed. But now the signals were so scrambled, it was the only way he could compute that she was unable to distinguish between fantasy and reality. But the fantasy had to be broken now.

She leaned towards his screen and asked, “I am in sound mind and body, am I not, Wotan?” She said it with a little smile.

“Kathryn, would you please put on some clothes?”

“No...”

“Go on... walk to your closet Kathryn and take out your nightdress.”

“No...”

“Look at the viewscreen, Kathryn. Tell me what you see...”

Kathryn turned round to look at the screen and all she saw was the familiar expanse of darkness.

“There’s nothing, Wotan.”

“Was there anything a few minutes ago, Kathryn?”

“Why do you ask that? Silly Bugs Bunny. There can’t be anything, except Kru’dan and Roya in their own vessel...”

“Good, Kathryn. Do you remember seeing anything?”

“No, Wotan. Why do you ask?” She frowned.

“Because you are naked, Kathryn. You may have been dreaming again.”

Kathryn then looked around her in the cabin. There were things lying about that she must have thrown around - boots, a commbadge, and a torn blue dress were lying on the floor. She saw the deep scratches on her arms and thighs, the bruises on her breasts.  Twisted around her fingers were strands of hair. She touched her head and immediately winced at the pain in her scalp, the result of hair having been pulled out by its roots.

“Oh, my God,” she groaned.

“I am sorry, Kathryn,” Wotan offered, as he heard her sobbing so heartbrokenly. He would have hugged her if he could. But she had broken with the fantasy at last, and realised what she had done.  If he were human, he would have had deep empathy, a great compassion for her plight. There was no doubt about it. Traveling alone in the void, albeit with the company of the Susurrans - the Nibelungen as she called them - was breaking her down. It was breaking her. Wotan knew she tried her best, with his help, to keep sane. But staring at the void, being cast in total darkness so thick, so black that she had herself become photosensitive, was slowly killing her. By his calculations, Kathryn’s regression increased exponentially as each month passed and she was nowhere near the end of the void.  By his calculations, if Kathryn did not reach the end of the void within a year at the very outset, she would die. Where Kathryn had, in the beginning, created him to be a companion for her on her journey, right now, his primary aim was to keep her alive. Just alive. There was only so much he could do.

At least this time she didn’t ply him with questions of her guilt and the redemption he knew she sought. She imagined that if she reached the end of the void, she would be satisfied with herself and have atoned for her so-called misguided selfishness and delusions of being the great Starfleet Captain that she held herself to be.

When Kathryn stopped crying, she stumbled to her closet and pulled out a fresh gown. She would use the dermal regenerator to repair the broken skin later. Right now, she was too exhausted. She crawled into bed and curled up in a little ball like she always did when she was disturbed beyond her strength and control. She lay there shivering until she heard:

“Someone’s rocking my dreamboat....” Bugs sang very softly to her.

She became calm again, the sleep overtaking her as she allowed Bugs to sing softly to her.

“Someone’s invading my dream...” she mouthed the words as Chakotay’s image flashed in her mind.

It wasn’t long before Wotan sensed her even and deep breathing.

She was sleeping at last.

He had time to say, a little self-deprecatingly:

“Ain’t I a stinker...”

*****

Kathryn’s thoughts of the previous day faded slowly as sleep overtook her. She drifted into sleep, with her mouthed curved in a smile.

*** TBC


	5. Chapter 5

* * *

**Day 665**

**Personal log... Stardate 54306.09**

 

I wish to heaven that I can say things like: “My, how time has flown!” or “Goodness, where has the time gone?”

or just simply “I’d better go, I’m in a hurry”, or...”I have no time!” The image of the Caretaker flashes for a second

in my head as I say these words, his voice and tone accusing. If such expressions had been uttered by me before,

I have little recollection of how long ago that was, or what the circumstances... Time.

 

In the void, what is that? All I know is that I’m moving, yet not aware that I am. I am in perpetual darkness. It is an animal,

slowly devouring me, making me lose all sense of time, of space, of...  myself. I am not what I was. I hover between

fantasy and reality, darkness and...darkness. It is wearing me down, this void, this...this... Nibelungen.

And time, like his consort, the darkness, has become a beast that has overpowered my being and hungrily gnaws

in rhythmic movement at my heartbeat.

I can hear my heart in this stillness; it’s a pounding in my ears, and every beat throbs obscenely,

telling me I’m never, never going home...

How often has it happened that a person could be so driven, so applied, so set on a course for some high and lofty reason,

that all sense of “why” is lost?  And when the end is reached, they have no idea why they embarked on such a journey,

or why they did such and such a thing? Yet, I know what I have done...when I am clear-minded enough to think about it.

What are the facts?

The spatial vortex had to be destroyed. Through it, the Malon came and gradually, by dumping their radioactive waste

here in this “wasteland”, began killing and wiping out the Susurrans.

That is fact.

There was only one way that the vortex could be destroyed: The end of the vortex, where its dimensional radius

was weakest, had to be eliminated. That way, no one could come through the vortex from the “outside”

and no one could go out.

 

That is fact.

If Voyager had destroyed the vortex at its

weakest end  - that is, the end closest to Voyager;  it would have meant that Voyager and her entire crew would have

had to remain in the void for two years, the estimated time it would take to cross the entire void.

That is fact.

I did not want my crew to make that sacrifice.  They had already sacrificed enough through my own selfishness

when I destroyed the Caretaker’s array.

That is fact.

I decided to stay behind and destroy the vortex, let Voyager go on home. I did it for them. I did what I had to do...

That...is...fact...

Chakotay and I... we did not part amicably.

I find it difficult to go on. The beasts are eating me, from the inside. There are leftovers from their meal.

It’s called guilt, remorse, loneliness, isolation. There is a constant hunger in me for the peace of atonement...absolution.

I am alone.

With only Wotan.

And Kru’dan.

And Roya.

And memories.

And this eternal damnation of darkness.

Nothing has meaning anymore.

I have been here almost two years now, and the prospect of seeing the end, the prospect of summoning

the strength to go on, becomes bleaker.

 

_“Kathryn klein, ging allein...”_

end log...

 

******************

 

**Day 700**

“Hey, Janeway!” Wotan called loudly, the voice echoing in the shuttle.

Kathryn lay in bed. It was 0900. Morning. Whatever. Late for whatever... Her eyes were open, but they appeared glazed, unseeing.

“Janeway!!!!”

After a long while, she moved. It was, however, merely to change position. Now she lay on her side, facing away from the bulkhead.

“Janeway, come on now. Time to get up,” he commanded.

No response, except a low moan.

“You haven’t eaten anything in three days, Janeway. You need sustenance.”

“I’m not hungry,” it came weakly from the aft section.

“She speaks!” Wotan crowed. “Now, Janeway, rise and shine!!!”

Kathryn winced painfully as his strident voice rang in her ears.

She groaned again and raised herself. Her movements were sluggish, she felt weak and dizzy.

“Do I have to?” she muttered softly as she stood unsteadily on her feet, her long nightdress hanging limply on her. “There is no purpose, is there?”

“There is, Kathryn,” Wotan’s voice assured her. It was soft, tender. “Come, my dear. Go to your replicator and take there your nutrients for this morning.”

“I can’t eat, Wotan,” she said, moving to the replicator and seeing what Wotan had already programmed. She groaned again.

“A little at a time, Kathryn, to build up your strength again.  Remember what we decided, Kathryn?” He spoke to her as if she were a little girl of four years.

“Yes...”

“I am responsible for keeping you strong, and keeping you alive.”

“Yes...” she said as she took the orange juice from the replicator and started drinking slowly. She pulled her nose as the taste hit her. Wotan won’t let her drink coffee...

“And I am to see that we both get through Susurran space in one piece.

“Yes...” she mumbled as she took the muffin from the replicator and bit into the soft and...tasty cake. She chewed and realised that she wanted more. Quickly, she finished the muffin.

“That’s a good girl, Kathryn. It’s enough for now. Go make yourself presentable, Captain, and we’ll decide what to do for today,” came his imperious voice.

Kathryn’s lethargy left her gradually, and she was glad when she could actually focus properly around her. She had become melancholy again the last few days, not wanting to go on, the strength no longer there.

There was no light in the shuttle now. Even at eight percent illumination, her eyes rebelled against that little light. But she was comfortable moving around. An hour later, she appeared before Wotan, dressed immaculately in her uniform. She hadn’t worn it for days.

“Hey...what’s up, Kathryn?”  He had his Bugs Bunny face.

“Good Morning, Wotan. Kathryn Janeway at your service. What can I do for you?”

“My sweet Brynhilde! My Kathryn klein! Little girl, my wish-maiden, Protector of the Shield, Wearer of the Ring, my Valkyrie, ride with me today!!!!”

The rest of the day Kathryn relaxed as Wotan entertained her. They played games, they sang songs, he showed her old twentieth century movies. She laughed, cried sometimes when the movie was sad.

Kathryn watched Deborah Kerr, whose eyes brimmed with tears, tell Cary Grant: “Oh, darling, if you can paint again, I can walk again...”

“Oh, Wotan,” Kathryn said, “how utterly sweet and beautiful.” Her own eyes misted over with happiness for the couple, reunited at last.

“Thank goodness for happy endings,” Wotan crowed.

*********

 

**Day 715**

“...I need you, Wotan,” Kathryn said seductively, her hands splayed on her hips as she moved in sensual grace before his console.

“What do you want, my Kathryn?” he spoke in Chakotay’s voice, showing Chakotay’s face on his screen.

“You...”

“How...” he sounded hoarse.

“You know how.”

“I do not wish to comply, Kathryn..”

“Don’t go all noble on me, Wotan. It’s not as if we - “ Kathryn had already started pulling off her jacket, slowly and sensuously, her hips swaying a little as if she were moving to some tune.

“Don’t I know it, my love! You taught me yourself to be Chakotay.

You showed me how to go about seducing you, as...him...”

“My hands are on my breasts, Wotan,” Kathryn said huskily as the jacket lay discarded on the floor and her hands cupped her breasts, the fabric of her turtleneck adding to the sensual feel as it moved against her.

“Tell me what to do, Wotan... Chakotay...”

“Who do you want me to be...”

“Chakotay...”

Wotan, who for almost two years had been her companion, her saviour on countless occasions, who had seen her through every mood known to humans, gave a huge sigh... He hadn’t wanted to do it, knowing how it left her afterwards. But right now, her pheromone levels were increased, heightening her sexual sense and need for stimulation. He sighed again. She was not going to give up... He was so attached to her himself, so attuned to every emotion and mood, he knew that had he been a corporeal being, he would have been in love with her...

“Stand at your cheval, my sweet love. Today I am - “

“Chakotay...” she breathed as she stood at the long mirror, looking at her image. Her face was flushed, her mouth open as she arched her neck. She stroked her hips while she waited for Wotan...

“Take off your turtleneck...” Chakotay said softly.

She complied, tucking her fingers in the lower edge, slipping the garment over her head in languorous, lazy movements.

“Your bra...”

“Chakotay...” his name slipped from her lips as she looked at her face in the mirror, watching her hands go up to remove the lacy item, letting it flutter to the floor.

“I know, my love. I must ask: Are you wet...?”

“Yes...”

“Now remove the rest. Slowly, Kathryn,” he ordered quietly. He knew how excited she could get, and he waited for her signal.

“I am now...”

“You are naked, Kathryn.”

“Yes...”

“Stroke your neck, and let your fingers trail to the hollow, my love. They are now my rough hands, yet infinitely tender,” he coaxed as her hands caressed her skin, going over the rise of her breasts, whispering over her taut nipples. They were pink nubs in a darker aureole.

“Squeeze them, my love...”

“Yes,” she murmured softly as her fingers closed over her nipples and she squeezed gently, massaging and squeezing until she could feel how sharp little frissons of pleasure found their way to her centre, causing it to swell and throb lightly.

“I’m wet, Chakotay...”

“Good,” Chakotay said. “Now, my love, remember I’m your lover. Feel my hands: large and rough, yet gentle as they explore your body.  Feel them covering your breasts fully again, giving them a squeeze before settling at your incredibly narrow waist...”

Kathryn let her hands travel to her waist, imagining Chakotay’s hands on her. In a few moments, she would be unable to establish whose hands so expertly treated her body to the most sensual touches. The image of Chakotay began to superimpose itself over hers in the mirror. She reared immediately into readiness as she felt his hands go to the delicate triangle of hair.

“My Kathryn, your skin is so soft, so smooth, the mere touch of my hands on it sends me dizzy...”

“I know, Chakotay,” she whispered hoarsely as she felt his fingers entangle themselves in the delicate hair, damp from her flowing juices. He twirled a few strands between his fingers, the tips lightly brushing over her swollen folds. She moaned as desire drove through her.

“Spread, Kathryn...”

“Ahhhh...” she moaned again as she threw her head back and spread her legs a little to allow her hands - Chakotay’s hands - to brush over her vulva. She felt hot, and her skin had a sheen. With her eyes closed she could see and feel Chakotay over her, against her, his lips everywhere... She drew in her breath, a hissing sound.

“That’s it, my love... Good, good... Now I’m  kneeling in front of you, my hands are holding your derriere and kneading it while my mouth is ready to cover you.”

“Easy...easy now...”

Kathryn began to moan uncontrollably, her head tossing from side to side as she stood in front of the mirror, her legs spread and bent a little. She thought she could actually feel Chakotay’s warm breath on her, but it was only Wotan raising the temperature of the aft section.

“I can feel your tongue...”

“That’s it... Now use your hands, Kathryn, imagine it’s my mouth, and your finger is my tongue,” Chakotay coaxed through the mists of pleasure as she tried to push against her own hand and mewled softly, like a kitten.

“My  mouth closes in on your soft centre, my love... feel my lips cover yours...the heat of it is searing...”

Kathryn could feel how Chakotay’s mouth latched on her vulva, his lips and tongue so hot it burned deliciously through her. She gave a shiver of pleasure. “Oh, yessss...” she hissed as she imagined his tongue separating her soft, swollen folds, already dripping with her juices. He licked against her, his teeth nipping each fold gently. She gave an involuntary cry as his tongue slipped into her.  Beads of sweat formed on her brow, and she rocked gently while panting in short gasps. Two fingers had slipped into her vagina and she felt her whole body began to build into a swell of pleasure about to burst.

“How does it feel, my love...” Chakotay whispered as again she sensed only his mouth on her, his tongue darting in and out.

“Now, my love, I’ll unsheathe your little clit... Don’t be alarmed, Kathryn, when I close my teeth around it. It will be a gentle bite, gently... gentle...easy now,” he soothed as she started to buck.  She felt the tiny fold over her clitoris give way to expose the little erect nub. 

“Ready, Kathryn?” Chakotay said softly, but very distinctly, although Kathryn was lost in the swirling mass of tingling nerve-endings that were about to explode.

“Yes, my love...” she croaked, then hissed long and pleasurably as she felt Chakotay’s teeth - her own fingers - close on her clit.  The pressure was gentle at first, then he nipped hard suddenly. She keened loudly as her body started to heave and heave, the heat suffusing her almost unbearably as Chakotay released her clit, then sucked her juices from her.

“Chakotay!!!!”  She screamed his name over and over as she exploded and crashed over the edge. Her head was thrown far back, and her screams reverberated through the shuttle as she sank to her knees, her fingers still deeply embedded in her vagina... She had little time to recover as Chakotay said:

“There’s more... rise, Kathryn...”

Gasping, she rose slowly, her body still hot and sweating.

“Now I’m standing up against you, my love. Put your feet on mine and let me walk you to your bed.”

She mimicked the action and slowly stepped backwards until she felt the back of her knees against the bed.

“It’s done...”

“Lie down, sweet Kathryn, on your back and spread your legs for me...”

Her hands caressed her creamy, soft skin while she spread her legs.  She was completely in the throes of passion and would do anything Chakotay told her to do.

“Remember my love, your hands will trace my movements,” Chakotay said as he waited a few seconds for Kathryn to settle.

“Yes...” she purred. Chakotay detected the slight vibration of the sound coming from her throat. Her hands were all over her, smearing her with her juices, pressing, dipping, kneading.

“My body covers your body, you can feel my weight over you.”

Kathryn gave a deep sigh as she imagined she felt Chakotay pressing his large frame against her.

“My mouth is close to yours, you can hear my breathing, feel how my lips brush very lightly against your own...”

Kathryn’s fingers traced the outline of her lips in a feather-light caress; her lips opened as she allowed the fingers in her mouth.

“My tongue dips into your mouth, tracing your teeth and touching your own tongue. You can feel the heat of it, my love... You want more of me in your mouth, my Kathryn. Do it now, gently...gently,” he cautioned as three of her fingers probed her mouth and she sucked hungrily on them...

“You feel my hard arousal press into your centre, and you raise your hips... My mouth leaves yours, to capture your left breast.  Remember your hands Kathryn... My mouth is over your aureole, and when I suck, I want to draw more of your breast into my mouth.”

Kathryn moaned out loud as her hands cupped her left breast as she mimicked the action, pressing and kneading so that half of her breast appeared to be one large nipple. She mewled and gave little keening cries as she imagined Chakotay sucking.

“The right breast...”  Kathryn started bucking as she complied.  Her eyes closed and lips parted, breathing raggedly and gasping, she gave herself over to the overpowering sensations that ripped through her body as she heaved and sweated.

Then Chakotay moved to her navel, where he laved her, eliciting such erotic impulses that she cried out. His tongue lapped generously at her soft belly, dipping into her navel, then nipping her skin here and there. She arched and writhed, while her head tossed from side to side.

“Now, Chakotay...”

Kathryn felt him move over her again, his mouth on hers.

“Feel my penis nudging your opening. Your vagina is a ripe fig, a fruit, pink and inviting, just waiting to be eaten... You shift ever so gently to allow my shaft full passage into you, but for now, I am content to rub my penis against your delicious fruit...”

She writhed and tried to raised her hips...

“Easy, Kathryn...to soon for that...” He knew. So she let Chakotay rub her, tease her, his hard shaft massaging, the tip just hovering to enter, then pulling away.

She groaned impatiently and she thought she heard Chakotay’s voice:

“Greedy...”

“Oh, yes...”

“Yes...”

“Yessss....!!! came her long hiss as she felt him enter her, slowly, slowly, filling her tight sheath. She could feel her sheath muscles close around him, contracting and relaxing as she squeezed and squeezed.

“Feel it...”

It rose slowly in her, a tidal wave coming closer and closer; her body heaved, contorted, sweated, spilled her fluids; she bucked wildly as the first waves crashed over and she screamed and screamed and screamed.

It was Chakotay’s name, over and over. Wotan remained silent for the next few minutes while he waited for her to float down from her explosive orgasm. He could hear her cries, her ragged breathing, then her gasps and panting, the keening and finally, purring like a kitten.

Kathryn lay on the bed, legs and arms spread in wild abandon, her body bathed in sweat. At her centre, where her fingers were still deep inside her vagina, the lips that clung to her fingers were pulsing gently for long minutes until it eventually came to rest.

Wotan waited.

Kathryn started sobbing.

Uncontrollably.

He let her cry her heart out. When she stopped eventually, she heard him speak at last.

“My Kathryn...”

“Chakotay...”

“Sleep now, my love. I will sing for you...”

He started singing softly, “ _Kathryn Klein_...” and only stopped when his sensors picked up her even breathing. She slept soundly, completely naked, with her hand still resting on the patch of hair at her centre.

****** 

TBC


	6. Chapter 6

* * *

_**Day 730** _

“Captain Janeway is regressing, Roya,” Kru’dan remarked, without looking at his partner, and staring intently at the shuttle Sacajawea. “We see less and less of her. She does not move around as much anymore, my friend.”

 _I  could have told you that two weeks ago_ , thought Roya, feeling a little surly. It was the truth and he was filled with concern.  The personal logs he had been keeping for almost two years indicated that Captain Janeway had finally reached the end of her endurance.

He wanted to make some smart comment, but said, “Yes, she is not herself.”

“Roya, she has not been herself for a long time.”

 _I could have told you that a long time ago_.

“Yes, I know that, Kru’dan,” he replied, his voice tinged with a little edginess.

“We must do something, my friend,” Kru’dan said and Roya was certain he heard concern in his partner’s voice. When Kru’dan turned his gaze away from the viewport and looked at Roya, Roya’s suspicion was confirmed. Another thought struck Roya like a bolt: could it be that Kru’dan could possibly be seeking his counsel, his help? _Wonder of wonders_ , thought Roya. Kru’dan was at a loss!  He didn’t know what to do. Yet, when Roya spoke again, he let Kru’dan have the benefit of the decision-making again.

“What do you suggest we do, Kru’dan?” he asked.

“Do you think it would be a good idea for us to take turns and keep her company during the day?”

“That would be a very good idea, Kru’dan. I think it will work. But I am certain the lady Janeway would not be happy with it.

“But we - “

“ - can at least try. Yes, I know that, Kru’dan.”

***

She stared at the viewscreen, seeing...nothing, naturally. Her thoughts were not, however, on what or was not out there. They were on Kru’dan and Roya’s visit. Good-natured souls that they were, they had offered to keep her company virtually full time.

She gave a tired sigh.

She had little inclination for their company these days. What days were they? she wondered. Not dog days, or halcyon days, or happy days or just plain normal days. Kru’dan’s visit merely emphasized her isolation, her melancholy. He confirmed what Wotan had determined already, and although unintentionally, Kru’dan and Roya had rubbed it in that her journey to the end of the void would take another six months.

She listened to them as calmly as she could without exploding into another frenzy of tears. She noted absently the expectant look on their fleshy faces, the lips drawn back from their teeth, and their red eyes which never left her face as they waited for her response.  She did not want to see their sympathetic glances on her all the time; she sensed they felt sorry for her. She didn’t want that.

They were disappointed.

“I take comfort in the knowledge that you are out there, Kru’dan, watching over me,” she said. She had been tired, hadn’t slept properly for days, and hadn’t eaten again, much to Wotan’s annoyance.

They had taken the news philosophically, accepted her decision and left. They would only visit for short periods, and only upon her request. Kathryn had seen Roya’s eyes on the computer terminal, seen him watch as Wotan’s panels displayed data from time to time.

She snorted delicately. Wotan was on his non-communicative best behaviour. Even in the dire circumstances in which she found herself, Wotan was technology that could not be shared.

Six months.

For her, another lifetime. There was nothing to look forward to.  She had little strength left with which to fight the bleakness of her existence. She felt like screaming most of the time, just looking at the viewscreen. Now the oppressive and claustrophobic confines of the shuttle were closing in on her.

Another six months... It loomed like an insurmountable hurdle before her, and everyday of the past two years had been a battle to summon her strength to go on. Now... now she was ready to collapse, unable to continue...

“I can’t anymore, Wotan. I can’t ride with you...”

“You can, Kathryn, my Valkyrie. Believe that you can. I’ll be with you all the way. Do it, please... for me, for you, for Chakotay, for the crew you so valiantly sent forth...”

“Does it still matter, Wotan?” she asked as she turned to face his screen.

Wotan, in his way, took in her appearance. Though he could not see through human eyes, his sensors picked up her low erythrocyte count which indicated a paleness, her anaemic condition; he knew she had not replicated food in days; whatever he replicated himself, he had to recycle. He sensed her extreme thinness compared to what she had weighed only a month before. He knew she was near the end of her endurance, and in the next six months he was going to have to use every trick in his database to keep her going.

“It matters, Kathryn. It matters. You are flesh and blood, a physical being raised to respect the sanctity of life. Your life, Kathryn. Your life. When we reach the end of the void, you will know that it was worth every minute, every hour, every day that you traveled here. To keep alive, Kathryn, for the sake of your crew. Believe it, believe they are out there, waiting for you...”

“You make it sound grand, noble - “

“No, my dear Kathryn. _You_ made it noble, something beautiful, a wonderful and honourable sacrifice for Voyager and your crew.

“I don’t have a crew, Wotan,” she said, giving a soft sob as memories of her people overcame her. Flashes of Neelix with his lopsided chef’s hat, Chell, the Bolian, little Naomi. Kathryn’s voice sounded so sad and her eyes tender.

“Kathryn, my love, they are what have kept you going, just thinking that they made if safely through the vortex. You did it, Kathryn, for them. They will never forget what you’ve done for them.”

“I am paying the price - “

“Dammit, Kathryn...”

“I used to be sensational...”

“On the ‘True Love’, yes, Kathryn. But this is not ‘High Society’, and you are not Tracy Lord. You are Kathryn Janeway, of the Federation Starship USS Voyager.”

“Who am I?”

“You are who made me, Kathryn Janeway.”

“I need you, Wotan...” she said on a note of desperation.

“I need you too, Kathryn. My programme is developing and adapting because of you. Of course, I get to inherit all your vices...”

She laughed for the first time, then turned her attention to the panels in front of her again. She began to sing, and seconds later Wotan joined her 

“ _I am sensational_!!!!”

**_****_ **

**_Day 740_ **

Wotan, recording Kathryn’s condition for the day: Extreme melancholy. It took me an hour just to wake her up. Her movements were sluggish, and I failed to get her to eat again. She refused all nutrients except to drink her juice. She is unable to respond to any of my attempts to cheer her up.  Her health is deteriorating. It is extremely difficult to get her to get out of her bed. Her present inclination is to lie down and linger.

**_Day 750_ **

Kathryn dragged her tired body from the bed and set about cleaning the aft section. Her hands held the cloth limply as she went about the simple tasks.

“Kathryn.”

“Hmmm...?”

“What are you doing?”

“Cleaning up, Wotan.”

“Why?”

“I need to keep busy, can’t you see?” she said coldly.

“Kathryn, sit here with me.”

“No.”

“Please.”

“No.”

“You shouldn’t overdo it, my daughter. Now, rest for a while, then you can - “

“No!!!”

Silence as her voice echoed in the shuttle. His sensors picked up her movement through her body temperature, and he knew that she continued with whatever cleaning she was doing. Wotan remained quiet until Kathryn stopped working, which was about an hour later.

“What are you thinking, Kathryn?” he asked.

It was quiet a very long time before she came to sit in the seat facing his console and looked at the screen. She was glad he did not have the bunny’s face. Instead, he looked again like Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau as he appeared in _Das Rheingold_. The eye-patch gave him an added pained, tortured look. She knew it was the look of Wotan as he finally cut Brynhilde out of his life. How did he know? she wondered, then pushed away that thought as she realised that all his adapting and development had come from continuously monitoring her, in every mood and emotion.

“I’m preparing to go home, Wotan,” Kathryn said, her voice clear and firm, although she still felt weak from self-deprivation. She was on a path of self-destruction, had been for a long time. She was aware that her periods of deep depression and despair were becoming so that there was no longer a clearly discernable period of lucidity. Wotan was aware of this. Right now, she felt strangely resigned, but it was not something she wanted Wotan to sense. She knew he would not stop trying to keep her alert, awake, lucid, alive...

Now, the time has come to make a change.

“I’m carrying on, no matter how tired I am, or sick of this void,” she said, knowing deep inside how, despite the hopefulness of her words, that was not what she felt.

“That is good, Janeway,” he said. “Very good. Then I, Wotan, your humble servant, will be at your side - “

“Wotan!” Kathryn gave a little laugh. “You, humble?”

“Ever so, Janeway. I will protect you, so that the ring will bring you the unity and peace you crave.”

“Yes...”

“And you can greet your crew with pride, my Kathryn.”

“Yes...”

“Now, what shall we do for the day, my dear?”

**_***_ **

**_Day 770_ **

Wotan was in despair. The past five days he struggled to rouse Kathryn from her extreme melancholy. She showed little inclination now to engage him in chess, or other games, or simply to sing and tell stories. Most of the time she lay on her bed, still in her nightgown when it was already mid-day in Earth hours. She would lie there, not talking, not moving. Late in the day, he could sense her dragging her body from the bed; she would walk around unsteadily before lying down again.

Some days, she was totally lucid, and he would be glad. Then she would sit in her command seat and plot courses, prepare for landings on planets once they cleared the void, would talk about seeing stars and nebulas and sunshine again. Her excitement was at fever pitch as he recorded her body temperature and hormone levels. But days such as these were becoming fewer and fewer; the incoherent and irrational days becoming the norm. And that concerned him, because if it continued, the distorted norm could eventually become Kathryn’s reality.

She tried, though, and her attempts, had he been human enough to appreciate them, were pathetic to behold.

Playing back yesterday morning’s conversation caused him real concern. She had managed to fool him for once. Thinking that she was preparing to set her goal of reaching the end of Susurran space in record time, was really not the case. She had been lying on her bed, her movements slow and laboured:

“Wotan...”

“What can I do for you, Kathryn?”

“I did the right thing, didn’t I?”

“Yes, it was a courageous thing to do. You sent your crew on. No one can fault you for such a valorous act, Captain Janeway.”

“You...don’t...think I was selfish?”

“Why not, Captain.”

“Liar...”

“Kathryn...”

“It’s eating me up, Wotan...”

“What is?”

“This...this constant feeling that - that I have...failed.”

“Kathryn, we have come so far. Do not give up now. Look, soon we will reach our destination - “

“Liar...”

“Yes - “

“Liar...”

“I have been your friend too long, Kathryn. I will never lie to you...” There was a pause, then Wotan spoke again:

“Let me sing for you, Kathryn.”

“Leave me alone, Wotan.”

“I cannot do that, Kathryn.”

“Leave me alone.”

“No...”

Kathryn rose slowly from her bed, stumbled up to the computer and deactivated him for the rest of the day. She did not say a word, just switched him off. Late that evening, she switched him on again.

“I’m sorry, Wotan.”

“It is nothing, Kathryn. You are not well, my dear. Please let me help you.”

She looked at the face of the one-eyed Wotan for long seconds, then calmly went about getting ready for bed, without answering him.

***********

Now she lay again on her bed, in some sort of stupor. Her mind had slipped into a world where she could not command her body to move.  Wotan was in cyber-despair.

 

**_Day 771_ **

“How do I look, Wotan?” Kathryn Janeway asked as she stood at her mirror, and smoothed down her uniform over her hips. It sat very loosely on her, but still elegant.

“Handsome,” Wotan said. He knew the drill. Say the words. His sensors picked up the composition of the fabric, the metal pips.  He sensed that she was in her uniform.

Her fingers caressed the row of pips on her collar. Her hair was smooth.

“I sense another metal on your person, Kathryn. It is - “

“Yes, the fob watch and chain Chakotay gave me for my birthday,” she filled in. An eternity ago, she thought.

She walked slowly to face his screen, and sat down in the chair.

“You look beautiful, Kathryn,” Wotan said.

“You can’t see me.”

“Kathryn, I know. And you know as well as I do that, like a tricorder, I simply take readings of your body temperature, the hormonal changes, your blood count, and by just - “

“I know, Wotan...”

“Computing and making comparatives assessments that - “

“I know...” she sighed.

“I sense every emotion in you, Kathryn, and I say you are beautiful.”

“Hey, no more compliments. Now, Wotan, I’m going to lie down.  Don’t disturb me,” she said softly as she rose again and went to her bed. She lay down on her back, her arms at her sides, and stared up at the ceiling; minutes later her eyes closed.

## ***

**_Day 775_ **

The Sacajawea made its way silently through the void. Six Susurran vessels - their commanders had been instructed by Kru’dan when the Sacajawea passed them - moved in quiet grace alongside the shuttle.  They flanked her sides, yet maintained a respectful distance. All six commanders had been instructed by Kru’dan to accompany the Sacajawea the rest of its journey to the end of the void.

They respected the Captain’s wishes not to enter her shuttle, or communicate with her further. Their respect for her was great indeed. Through her selfless act, most of the Susurran people recovered from the Sickness. Already, stories and legends were resounding all over Susurran space of this traveler, this valiant captain who sent her crew home and elected to remain behind and help them. They considered it a great honour to sail with her on her journey. But they understood from Kru’dan and Roya, who had become her friends, that Captain Janeway was ill. It was not an illness they could help her with. It was an illness of the heart and the mind.

So they moved with her, the small fleet resembling a sombre procession; ghostly images that appeared only slightly visible in the black of the void. There was an atmosphere of gloom as the procession passed other Susurran vessels, which, as the Sacajawea passed them, dipped their wings in respectful salute.

****

“Kathryn, wake up, please,” Wotan pleaded. He sensed her lifesigns were failing, and that she was in a state of complete inertia.  She did not move, and for four days, did not get up. She lay on her bed, fully dressed. If she did not get up now...

“Hey, Janeway!” he shouted, thinking to rouse her that way, but there was no response. Then he sang:

“ _Someone’s rocking my dreamboat,” Someone’s invading my dreammmmm_!!!!!!!!”

At the sound of that voice and that song, she stirred slightly, her eyes glazed and fixed on some point on the bulkhead.

“Wotan...” Her voice was soft, weak and breathy.

“Please, Kathryn, please get up.”

“Tell me...”

“You did well, my Kathryn. You are redeemed. You have paid your debt. There is no guilt, no remorse.”

“No more pain?”

“No, my child. No more pain,” Wotan soothed.

“The - the needs...”

“I know, Kathryn, sweet Kathryn, my Brynhilde, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.”

“Then I have done well?” she asked weakly, before she closed her eyes again and sighed gently.

“Yes, Captain Kathryn Janeway,” Wotan said, “yes, you have done well.  My extraordinary, courageous Captain, you have done well, indeed,” he said, even though he knew she could not hear him.

With only the lights from the conn and Wotan’s console, the shuttle was cast in an eerie gloom. Kathryn Janeway’s face was pale in the deep, reddish glow of the lit panels. Her face was gaunt, eyes sunken, and only occasionally a muscle in her jaw twitched in some remembered dream or nightmare. Her lips were parted slightly, and her breathing shallow. Tucked in the waist band of her uniform was the fob watch, around which her hand clasped and unclasped from time to time.

**

“Kathryn, wake up.”

“Hey, what’s up, Kathryn?”

“Ain’t I a stinker...”

“Janeway!!!!!!!”

Wotan began to sing:

 

_“Brynhilde!_

_Heavenly bride!_

_Look up! Open thine eyelids!_

_What has sunk thee_

_once more in sleep?_

_What drowns thee in slumber so deep?”_

 

“Kathryn, look! Wake up, please.”

“Captain Janeway!!!”

“Kathryn Janeway!

But Kathryn Janeway did not wake up. She stirred slightly and moaned, then became quiet again

“It’s over, Kathryn.”

“Kathryn, look! It’s Voyager! Look Kathryn!”

“Heavenly bride! Open your eyes!”

“Hail Voyager!”

*********

Finale to follow


	7. Chapter 7

* * *

**ON VOYAGER, ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE VOID**

They had, contrary to what Captain Janeway ordered and to his own promise that he'd follow her orders, remained outside the Void for almost two years, traveling from star system to star system to kill time, to explore new worlds in those regions and sectors. And always returning to particular coordinates, to try and detect the shuttle Sacajewea on long range sensors, for the belief that they would detect Kathryn Janeway was as strong a bond as if she had herself been on board Voyager, urging them all to believe.

When Chakotay had broached his idea to the senior personnel, they had all been in agreement. He'd spelled out to them in no uncertain terms that they'd be waiting two years for Captain Janeway's shuttle to reach the end of the void. They were adamant that they could not leave her behind to find her own way home.

Besides, as Tuvok suggested and what Chakotay had himself suspected, there was no knowing what travelling two whole years in total darkness and complete isolation would do to the emotional equilibrium of any person. He had been in a Cardassian prison, locked in solitary confinement for weeks. He knew how that could break even the strongest of men. For Janeway to live in the void was to exist in solitary confinement. There was not much difference.

Glancing around at his senior officers, Acting Captain Chakotay silently acknowledged their support, even though he knew his brand of leadership made him a little difficult, in a different way from Kathryn Janeway. He practically slept on the bridge of Voyager, refused many times to eat, hoping that the next series of long range sensors Harry sent out would detect a blip on the cosmic horizon.

He loved Kathryn. Following her orders had been the hardest thing he'd had to do, knowing how much she mean to him. He longed for her closeness, for her presence that always seemed to still the demons in him.

There was a silent prayer that the latest sensor sweep would reap results. He'd been staring at the main viewscreen for what seemed like hours without blinking.

"Harry, there'd better be something now," he barked as the interest of all the officers on the bridge seemed to jump into warp speed.

"Yes, Captain! Twenty thousand kilometers dead ahead! It's the Sacajeweya!"

"Tom, head straight for the shuttle!"

“One lifesign, Captain,” came Harry Kim’s voice from his station.

“It is Captain Janeway, Captain Chakotay,” Tuvok confirmed.

Chakotay had moved to stand level with the conning station, just behind Tom Paris, whose eyes were fixed on the small armada on the main viewscreen.  

Chakotay’s hands were at his sides, and those who took time to notice, saw his fingers tremble as he said:

“Voyager to Sacajawea, do you read?”

Silence for one second.

“Voyager to Janeway. Come in Janeway - ”

“Kathryn, this is Chakotay...”

******

In the shuttle Wotan recorded the sudden appearance from subspace of Voyager. She sat in the viewscreen, suspended in space, the familiar teaspoon shape of her primary hull throwing off dull flashes of blue-grey.

“Kathryn!” he called, “look! Look!”

Silence.

“Voyager to Janeway,” Captain Chakotay’s voice sounded in the shuttle.

“Kathryn, this is Chakotay, please respond...”

Kathryn Janeway stirred again and turned her face away from the bulkhead. Her eyes were heavy-lidded, closed. The voice penetrated her tired brain. Her hand clasped the watch and chain tighter. The effort to open her eyes was painful. The viewscreen appeared to her like a mirage, the silent, waiting image of Voyager another trick of the imagination.

Fata Morgana...mirage...fantastic trick...dream image...not real…

She heard a voice. A beloved voice. A voice that stayed with her for so long…

“Kathryn, this is Chakotay...”

She turned her face to the bulkhead again and closed her eyes, her hand clutching the watch so convulsively that her knuckles showed white against her already translucent skin.

A single tear escaped and rolled down her cheek. Could it be real?

Kathryn Janeway uttered just one word before her body was engulfed in the familiar blue shimmer of the transporter beam.

“Chakotay...”

 

**********************

**Five months later.**

They had found wormholes, improved their warp drive while they waited for Kathryn Janeway to clear the void. And so they found themselves back in the Alpha Quadrant, home to Earth on route from Deep Space Nine to Earth.

Captain Kathryn Janeway and Commander Chakotay walked briskly through the corridors of Voyager to the nearest turbolift that would take them to the shuttle bays. Immaculate in command red, they made a striking pair as they passed the crew on their way. She greeted and nodded and smiled. From time to time Chakotay’s hand would touch hers and she would look at him, her eyes tender as she smiled. He glanced down at her, his heart leaping at the new light in her eyes. Their woes before the journey through the void, all but forgotten, forgiven in the total trust in one another. Kathryn's hair shone and bounced lightly as she turned to those she greeted. Her skin was again the healthy colour of years before.

They entered the turbolift, Chakotay's hand against her back. Kathryn smiled at he touch. She loved his touching, loved that he was always near, always ready to comfort her.

“Are you okay?” he asked when the doors closed and the smile left her face. Hesmoothed the hair from her face.  Her own hand covered his. The ring was still on her ring finger.

She just nodded, then sighed. When she'd first opened her eyes in Voyager's sickbay, Chakotay had been sitting there, holding her hand, caressing the ring.

"Chakotay," she'd whispered hoarsely, "please let Tuvok marry us, right here?" Chakotay had rested his head on her bosom and his large frame shuddered.

By all accounts, according to their EMH, Captain Janeway had completely recovered, though she still had trouble with strong light. Sometimes, too, nightmares rocked her awake in the middle of the night, nightmares terrifying to deal with had she been alone. But the calming presence of her husband Chakotay, who would take her in his arms and hold her close, soothe her with his voice, brought her to the present again. He would hug her for long moments while her body shivered until it stopped. Then, he would spoon her body to his and she would welcome the protection and sigh contentedly. Not a word would be spoken between them, but she felt his peace flow into her.

Her travel through the void was not something she wanted to dwell on too often.

Chakotay looked down at her and remembered how desperate his order had been five months ago when he had her transported directly to Voyager’s sickbay. With magnificent insight he'd instructed the Doctor to lower the light settings to eight percent. He had a strong feeling then...

The shuttle had been brought into the shuttle bay where it remained unused. He'd ordered a forcefield placed around it so that only he, and eventually Kathryn, would enter the shuttle for the first time. All her official logs had been downloaded into Voyager’s computer. However, her personal logs proved the most revealing of her trials in the void.

She had been in critical condition for a week before she rallied.  Voyager had remained on the cusp of the void for that week so that two extremely concerned friends could also be assured that she was well enough until they could say their final good-byes to her. Only he, Chakotay, had been given a download of Kru’dan and Roya’s assessment of Kathryn’s journey through the void. Roya had, without Kru’dan’s knowledge, given Chakotay a copy of his own personal logs concerning Kathryn’s travails.

After that first week, she kept rambling about a Wotan... Then when she rallied, had promptly asked that Tuvok marry them, for she wanted no time wasted. At that point he had been spectacularly unware of just how serious he mental state had been. Chakotay sighed and closed his eyes. He didn’t want to remember those first two months. Kathryn and Wotan, Wotan who somehow represented not only her sanity in the void, but a replacement for her first officer, her lover, now her husband.

Kathryn heard his sigh as they exited the turbolift and headed for the shuttle bay. She stopped suddenly and turned to face him.

“Chakotay...”

“You can do it, Kathryn,” he said to her calmly. She looked gratefully at him, grasping his hand in hers. She nodded again, then walked ahead of him. Her steps were dignified as she approached the Sacajawea.

The forcefield had been released by one of Tuvok’s senior security staff members. The hatch lifted and Kathryn looked again at Chakotay, a sort of pleading in her eyes. She then turned and walked up the small ramp. He followed her. It had been her request.

The shuttle was empty. All her personal effects and the furnishings she used in the two years she spent in this confined space had been removed months before. Now it stood bare, hardly a sign that she had lived in it for so long. All except...

She felt Chakotay’s hand on her shoulder, and she turned into his arms. He held her like that, his hand coming up to cup her head, feeling the softness of her hair.

“Shhh...Kathryn, it will be alright,” he whispered.

He kissed the top of her head, then her forehead. It felt warm to him, as if she were feverish. Then he gave her a gentle push toward the computer. She seated herself in the chair at Wotan’s console.  Chakotay stood a little behind her.

She looked to him again, and he smiled.

“I’m here, Kathryn...” his smile and eyes said.

She turned to the computer. The last time she had been in here had been three months ago. It had been so difficult the first two months. She couldn’t go a day without hearing the voice that had carried her for more than two years, talking to him, being sung to....Wotan’s. And, every time it had been Chakotay who would come into the shuttle to calm her, switch off the computer and transport the two of them to their quarters.

Her hand reached out and she activated the consoles. Immediately, the panels lit up and Wotan’s face appeared. He wore his now familiar eye patch.

“Finally. After three months, two days, three hours and fifteen seconds.” Wotan paused dramatically.  

“What took you so long?” he asked with a petulant sound to his voice.

Chakotay managed not to laugh, still too amazed at Kathryn’s creation.

“I was busy, Wotan...”

“No doubt with... _him_ ,” he said again on a dramatic air and nodding his head, knowing that Chakotay was there.

“Running the ship, Wotan. I am the Captain, remember?” she said softly.

“Yes, yes, I know, my wish-maiden. We are on Voyager. We have been for five months.”

“Yes...”

“My Kathryn,” he crooned. “I missed you.”

“I know, Wotan.”

“You were away long, Kathryn.”

“Wotan...”

Chakotay could feel the tension building in the shuttle, saw Kathryn’s erect stance, the squaring of her shoulders. He smiled tightly. He knew she would not digress from her decision. She needed to face Wotan now, or she would never.

“Shall I sing you to sleep, Kathryn?” Wotan asked.

Kathryn smiled sadly. How many nights had he done that for her? But now she had to finally sever her dependence on him. Just knowing his programme was still active caused her to have painful withdrawals. Her crew, her people, Chakotay... they filled that void now, one that Wotan had filled for two years. It was time...

“Wotan,” she said again.

“Eh...what’s up, Kathryn?” he asked as he slipped his Bugs Bunny face on. He swung the carrot at her before he bit off a chunk and started chomping noisily.

“I have to let you go, Wotan...”

The eye-patch came on quickly, and Wotan looked...surprised.

“My Kathryn?”

“Yes...”

“You cannot do that, Kathryn. I need you, my love, my Daughter of the Valkyrie, my Brynhilde! And you...need...me...” he said, as his subroutines registered the true meaning of her intent.

“I have to, Wotan. It’s what I need to do...” she said slowly, her voice starting to falter.  Chakotay wondered suddenly whether she should go through with this.

“We have shared too many things, my Kathryn. I have been everything to you. I kept you alive, hear me? Alive!”

Kathryn swung round suddenly to face Chakotay, and for a moment there was a distraught look on her face. Then she turned to face Wotan again.

“I am sorry, Wotan. So sorry,” she whispered.

Wotan looked equally desperate as his face contorted and he broke into song. It was terrible in its pain, the voice trembling with emotion as each word poured from him:

 

_“You chose my lot, that you were to me;_

_Yet you choose against me..._

_You stirred the hero in me,_

_Yet you choose against me..._

_What you were, Wotan has uttered,_

_No longer my wish-maiden, creator,_

_Once you were my Valkyrie;_

_Henceforth remain only yourself!”_

 

Wotan sang in the voice of the grand baritone of the past, his pain and betrayal evident. Kathryn closed her eyes, felt the tears sting. She knew these words, knew every word of the Valkyrie.  But Wotan continued, his voice soft and tender, as if his initial anger and disappointment had dissipated. Now the words were kind, loving:

 

_“Farewell, my brave and beautiful child!_

_For once the life and light of my heart!_

_May I grant you my greeting:_

_Henceforth my Kathryn shall never more with me ride,_

_When I relinquish you, my beloved daughter,_

_I am heart-torn, let me give you this kiss_

_and for all time restore to you, your life!”_

 

Wotan looked at Kathryn, then smiled as he said: “Kathryn klein, no...longer...alone...alone...alone...”

Kathryn turned once more to look at Chakotay, smiled at him and turned to face Wotan again. Slowly her hands reached out, and her fingers hovered above the panels...

********************************************

END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here are the sources I used in my research for “Diary of a Madwoman:
> 
> 1\. Donington, Robert: Wagner’s ‘Ring’ and its symbols - The Music and the Myth.  
> 2\. Crown Publishers, Inc. NY: The Authentic librettos of the Wagner Operas.   
> 3\. The lullaby “Kathryn Klein” was copied from Jeri Taylor’s “Mosaic”. The lullaby, however, is a very old folk song used by that author in the novel. Original words: “Hänschen klein, ging allein.” 
> 
> This lullaby is also known by thousands of South African children who know it as “Hansie slim.” When I read Mosaic a year ago, I was struck by the cadences of the song, and although in German, my Afrikaans background made it possible for me to recognise the rhythm, structure, and meaning of some the words of this folk song. 
> 
> “little Kathryn (Hänschen), goes alone  
> out into the wide world
> 
> Something like that. Very loose translation!
> 
> My thanks to the late Inge Oliver and Hubert Kurzweil for their input.
> 
> 4\. The poems: Two poems appear here in the story, both written by this author. “All that I have of him...” is one of a set of quatrains with the original title: Remembrance. The verse from the "Vulcan Love Song Cantos" was written for this story. 
> 
> 5\. “Someone’s rocking my dreamboat” was written by Leon René, Otis René and Emerson Scott in 1941and first recorded by "The InkSpots". My thanks to Warner Brothers for the use of their character, and the verse.  
> 6\. Wotan’s arias: 
> 
> “Brynhilde! Heavenly bride!”, “You chose my lot” (slightly adapted) and “Farewell, my brave and beautiful child!” are sung by Wotan in the opera: The Valkyrie (Die Walküre). I have also used the English version of Brünnhilde’s name in the story. 
> 
> 7\. The baritone, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau: German baritone who made his opera debut in the Berlin German Opera in 1948, and from 1954 at the Bayreuth Opera. Known mostly for the over 600 lieder he sang as a lieder singer, he performed Wotan in two complete cycles of Wagner’s “Der Ring Des Nibelungen.” Most of the time in the story, Wotan takes the face of the German baritone. 
> 
> 8\. When I thought of what to call the void (or at least what Kathryn would call it), I had been reading the very inspirational “Surprised by Joy”, the autobiography of C.S. Lewis. Lewis had been introduced to the Wagner operas as a child, and was deeply interested in Norse Mythology. “Surprised by Joy” therefore, was the inspiration for the inclusion of Wagner’s Ring, and the creation of Wotan in my story.
> 
> 9\. My thanks to Dee, who suggested the NC-17 section in the story, and once again, my appreciation for my betareader, Monique. 
> 
> **


End file.
